From Secret Education to Artistic Empowerment
While escaping from the secret school, holding my younger cousin’s hand and looking back to make sure that there was no Taliban who had seen us coming out, I remembered my classmate Zahra. She was an intelligent and keen girl to pass the Kankor Examination, Afghanistan’s university entry exam, but never got the chance. She was killed by the Taliban in a Kankor preparation center, where an attack had happened on students just because they were Hazaras who wanted an education. I asked myself how she was feeling when she tried to escape from the Taliban, who shot her.
When the Taliban took over, all schools were banned for high school girls. My brothers’ school uniforms laughed and danced with the wind on the clothesline, but my uniform rested forever in my closet, replaced with a long black hijab. It showed depression and weakness and was making me cry. It showed that my brothers were able to learn, but I was not just because of the fact that I am a girl.
However, when my younger brothers were enrolled in Pegah High School, I found out that I could attend school secretly there. Pegah was divided into three separate blocks. The first block was for boys who were in high school; the second one was for elementary students; and the third block was for high school girls who were attending secretly. The back door located in a corner of the third block was the only way we could escape when the Taliban were going to inspect the blocks. I knew that if the Taliban could discover our secret school, they would punish me in a barbaric and terrific way, but the dangers were not important for me when I had found a way of empowering myself through education. More than ten times we had to escape from the school in the previous year; each time I was thinking of being shot by the Taliban, the same as Zahra, but it was like the universe was saving me all those times. I completed my junior class with lots of difficulties and dangers, but I still got the second position in my class.
In the current year, restrictions and prohibitions against women and girls increased, which is why my parents didn’t take the risk of losing me on the way to education. They made me stay at home and didn’t allow me to attend Grade 12. However, I continued my education on my own. I developed my painting skill through taking an art course to enhance my technical ability, sketching characters to create short animations with my elder sister, drawing portraits of my relatives and some famous people, working as my art teacher’s assistant in the art gallery, and participating in some international and national expos to exhibit my artwork, where I also worked as an interpreter for diplomats and representatives of the UN, Pakistan, Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkey, and China. In addition, I was an English and painting teacher in an organization where I taught poor children. Struggling with naughty kids who didn’t have enough materials to learn drawing and English and sharing my own painting equipment and tools with them created unforgettable memories with keen kids to learn painting. A computer class, where I got familiar with using computers by working with my best friend on related projects, was also added to my activities.
I dream of becoming a successful artist and entrepreneur and empowering young Afghan girls and women around the world by establishing art galleries where girls who are interested in art are able to work on their talents and get empowered. Furthermore, I aim to boost my painting skills by majoring in art at college to learn painting in an academic way and know more about art history, as well as organize exhibitions inside and outside my college with my other artist fellows.
-- By Farah
