Mentoring Courage: My Journey with Afghan Women Writers
The power of poetry
Dear Orphan,
I know you lost your father and mother
To war, to suicide attacks
And bomb blasts.
I know you wish
It had been you who died
Instead of them. (Sharifa)
Several years ago, I had the privilege of mentoring strong Afghan women like Sharifa through the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, an online platform that connected approximately 50 American educators and writers with female writers from Afghanistan and empowered them to find their voices.
In a country known for its human rights violations, where women cannot pursue education and must be accompanied by a male guardian to leave the house, these courageous women worked under pseudonyms at online cafes to share their stories. Amidst the turmoil and terror of the Taliban’s rule, they shared their pain and resilience. Sharifa, writing under a pseudonym like many others, offered her poem “Dear Orphan” as a testament to their experiences.
For Afghan female writers, writing was and is a form of social agency, a way to assert their identities amid struggles for power and resistance. My task as a mentor was to help women write in English and explore what it feels like to be a subjugated woman in Afghanistan — something I did not know firsthand. My goal was to engage women in discussing…
