Session With Students in Kabul

MIDDLEBURY Farahnaz Afaq, a Westover senior and the schools first student from Afghanistan, connected two groups of students half a world away from one another in a Skype session on November 8 with the help of Westovers Interim Director of Global Programs Kate Taylor.

Ms. Afaq came to Westover this fall after spending two years at a British school.

Previously, she had been a student at the School of Leadership, Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan.

SOLA was founded by American educator Ted Achilles as a boarding school to provide Afghan girls with greater opportunities for education.

You have to study at SOLA for at least a year, and then they will find a school or university abroad where you can go and continue your studies. Ms. Afaq explained she studied at SOLA for a year and a half before continuing her education in Britain.

Fifteen students and three faculty members joined in the half hour Skype session with about 20 SOLA students in Kabul.

I thought it would be a good idea to connect Afghan girls with Westover students, Ms. Afaq explained.

Their life experiences and their stories are completely different from one another. Most students here know very little about Afghanistan many of them have only heard the name of the country in the news and that is it.

After the Skype session, Ms. Afaqs impression is that Westover students were rather shocked by the stories the SOLA students shared with them.

The Westover students were asking them what they did for fun, what kind of sports they played, things like that, she recalled.

The responses from the SOLA students gave the American students a new perspective.

Ms. Afaq commented, I think they found out how lucky they are. They heard stories from the Afghan students that showed that in Afghanistan they had to be more serious about life and about what they had to go through to get a better education.

Westover students dont have to think so much about security, about food, about how they are going to get the supplies they need at school. They learned that for some of the girls to get an education there it is a matter or life or death.

Dhalia Tejada, a Westover junior who was one of the students at the Skype session, said the exchange reminded her of how privileged girls in America are to have access to satisfactory schooling.

During the session, she added, the SOLA students encouraged their Westover counterparts not to think of their culture as a culture of terrorism. They also wanted to tell us how beautiful Afghanistan was, and that it is not just a war zone as the media portrays it to be.

Ms. Afaq and Ms. Taylor hope to have future Skype sessions later in the school year, perhaps with students in Somalia.

In addition to future Skype sessions and possible school trips to attend culture fairs around the area, Ms. Afaq will also offer a Chapel Talk about Islam.

She has established a new Westover club with Ms. Taylor, the International Student Alliance, as a way of supporting all of Westovers international students and offering another venue for them to share and learn about the students diverse cultures, experiences, and backgrounds.

At the schools C.O.L.O.R.E.S. Festival, an annual fall cultural fair that features food, performances, and other activities organized by Westovers student clubs, the International Student Alliance club offered visitors to their table henna tattoos and recreated aspects of the Hindu Holi Festival of Colors, which includes participants tossing brightly colored powders into the air and over each other.

Ms. Taylor praised Ms. Afaqs efforts, Shes trying for both breadth and depth, covering a number of cultures in an authentic way.

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Source: http://www.voicesnews.com/articles/2013/12/25/community_news/doc52b8a10b2357b364121092.txt