It's a Saturday afternoon in San Francisco's Haight District, and Afghan Friends Network's (AFN) board members have gathered to do an important job. An Afghan spread of roat, nuts and raisins is set before them. The refreshing aroma of cardamom-flavoured green tea travels from the kitchen of the four-story Victorian house to the dining area, where they work on the large circular table. Teenage girls sit around the kitchen table singing American pop songs.
Humaira Ghilzai is the co-founder of AFN, a tiny nonprofit manned by an all-volunteer team which funds three schools in Ghazni, Afghanistan that provide education to about 750 students. The group also employs teachers and administrators, teaches 80 women to read, and provides scholarships to students to further their education. They do this with $78,000 a year, 90 percent of which is spent on projects in Afghanistan (the other 10 percent pays a lawyer to look after their taxes, marketing and online presence). On this foggy Saturday, the board members are here to plan the theme of their next annual fundraiser. They also discuss activities in the Ghazni schools while Ghilzai's teenage daughter Aria and her friends do the old-fashioned but important task of stuffing envelopes with letters to donors asking for money to support the organisation's work.
Ghilzai's family fled Afghanistan in 1980 when she was 11 years old, but it wasn't until she was in her 20s that she wanted to help the country she had left behind. The mother of two has worked in technology and as a style consultant and blogger, but nothing has been more rewarding than managing AFN. She has traveled to Ghazni three times to monitor the schools and meet with teachers and students. "I have seen a lot of self-motivation and teamwork I didn't expect in Afghanistan," Ghilzai said. "I do not see Afghanistan's future as doom and gloom. With the media exploding, it's really different now. There will be a setback [with the troop withdrawal], but I do think if we in the West keep Afghanistan in our conscience, things will get better."
Ghilzai's family was among the six million Afghans who fled the Soviet invasion of 1979, which created the largest refugee community in the world and signaled the beginning of a severe brain drain from Afghanistan. The majority of this wave settled in neighbouring Iran and Pakistan. At least two million returned after the Taliban were ousted in 2001 (including thousands of wealthy Afghans who had made a life in developed countries), joining those who had stayed put in Afghanistan through the decades of war and were finally getting a chance to go to school and work again. A small percentage of the young men and women who make up the majority of the 30 million strong population have flourished in the last 12 years. They have become professionals, technocrats, Fulbright scholars, political analysts, entertainers, journalists and entrepreneurs.