Afghan travel agent helps women study abroad

Mar­jana Sadi (pic­tured above), 21, set up Banoo Travel Agency in a mar­ket in cent­ral Kabul nearly a year ago. Now eight young female staff work under the por­traits of suc­cess­ful Afghan women.

Sadi said she set up the com­pany after hear­ing many women com­plain­ing about their struggles to get jobs as they could not get into for­eign uni­ver­sit­ies. Her com­pany has so far secured places for more than 35 women.

“I’d been a radio presenter for more than 3 years and I was fed up with hear­ing that some jobs are exclus­ively for men and women don’t have the skills for these jobs so I decided to set up my own com­pany,” Sadi told the Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion in a phone inter­view from Kabul.

Sadi said her fath­er and broth­er helped her with the $50,000 needed to set up Banoo Travel Agency and friends from the Min­istry of Women Affairs linked her to con­tacts in for­eign uni­ver­sit­ies to arrange places for women to study abroad.

She said in the past year her travel agency has man­aged to secure uni­ver­sity places for 35 girls in Tur­key and they are cur­rently work­ing on send­ing some women to Rus­sia and India. She said the next tar­get was uni­ver­sit­ies in Europe.

One stu­dent, Muazama, who did not want to give sur­name, is get­ting ready to leave for a journ­al­ism course at Istan­bul Uni­ver­sity with Banoo arran­ging her visa, travel and uni­ver­sity admis­sion at a cheap­er cost than she could have arranged.

“I always wanted to con­tin­ue my edu­ca­tion but nev­er had a way to do it, but Mar­jana helped me to get admis­sion for 50 per­cent cheap­er at Istan­bul Uni­ver­sity,” Muazama said.

Accord­ing to a World Bank report, about 76 per­cent of women aged over 15 in Afgh­anistan are illiterate.

For although Afghan women regained the right to go to school, vote, and to work since the ultra-con­ser­vat­ive Taliban was over­thrown in 2001, the nation’s eco­nom­ic and secur­ity crisis makes it dif­fi­cult for women to access education.

Afghan women gradu­at­ing at the Inter­na­tion­al Cen­ter for Afghan Women’s Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment on the cam­pus of the Amer­ic­an Uni­ver­sity of Afgh­anistan, May 25, 2013. By US Embassy Kabul Afgh­anistan (CC BY-ND 2.0) via Flickr.

Many areas of Afghan soci­ety remain male dom­in­ated, and changes tak­ing place are often slow and patchy.

In May a new TV chan­nel ded­ic­ated to women with all female presenters and pro­du­cers began broad­cast­ing while Afgh­anistan’s first female pilot, refugee Shaista Waiz, hit the spot­light with her bid to be first Afghan woman to fly solo around the world.

Sadi, who has nev­er stud­ied over­seas but has vis­ited India and Tur­key, said she hoped one day soon to be among the stu­dents head­ing for a uni­ver­sity life abroad and new career.

“Through my own travel agency, I am plan­ning to con­tin­ue my high­er edu­ca­tion in Busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion in the next two years in Tur­key or India,” she said.

Source: Thom­son Reu­ters Found­a­tion, the char­it­able arm of Thom­son Reuters.

Fea­tured image: Mar­jana Sadi, the own­er of Banoo Travel Agency, poses for a photo in Kabul Afgh­anistan, August 2017. Cred­it: Banoo Travel Agency via Thom­son Reu­ters Foundation.