Zuhra Bahman
Education - United Kingdom (Western Europe)
Zuhra currently lives in London where she is taking a gap year, before going back to her studying law and anthropology at the London School of Economics, to concentrate on her work on human rights and education issues in Afghanistan. After moving from Afghanistan to the UK in 2000, Zuhra set up the Afghan Youth Fund, a voluntary organisation that gives opportunities to youth to become involved in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. During her summer breaks Zuhra goes back to her country and helps improve access to education.
“My plan is to create libraries in schools in Afghanistan, and make the students responsible for the creation and management of their library. This project aims to address the problem of lack of books at schools and lack of decision making power among youth in Afghanistan.”
Zuhra’s vision is to improve the prospects of students and of a society ravaged by war. The situation in Afghanistan is still very fragile. Keeping general contact is hard as postal, email and telecommunication problems are huge in Afghanistan.
However, Zuhra raised funds to provide books for a girl’s school in Kabul and she could successfully establish a small library. She fervently believes that “education is the solution to many problems”. A 2nd library is established in December 2005.
In 2006 Zuhra will work on another project focused on the provision of scholarships for Afghan students such as doctors, engineers etc. and to give the opportunity to study abroad. She is also coordinating a pilot project of establishment of a faire trade link between a Kabul based small NGO and an Italian fair trade shop.
Since the age of 15 she has been a human rights activist, she established the refugee wing of the Youth and Children development Program in Pakistan in 1998 and organised activities such as art exhibitions, language and IT classes etc.
She then started the Afghan Youth Fund (AYF) in the UK. She participated in international events and has been working with the media.
After spending two wonderful years working at British Red Cross, Zuhra is now working with STAR Student Action for refugees, a UK wide youth and student run and refugee focused campaigning organization.
Afghan Youth Fund can be found at www.afghanyouthfund.org
