Rangina Hamidi
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Rangina Hamidi (
Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official languages ...
: رنګینه حمیدي; born 1978) is an
Afghan-American Afghan Americans ( prs, آمریکایی‌های افغان‌تبار ''Amrikāyi-hāye Afghān tabar'', ps, د امريکا افغانان ''Da Amrīka Afghanan'') are Americans of Afghan descent or Americans who originated from Afghanistan. ...
writer, educator, social activist and politician. She is well known as an advocate for women's rights in Afghanistan and has engaged in various social projects to empower girls and women in Afghanistan. Hamidi has served as an education minister of Afghanistan until the Taliban takeover. She is the first female education minister of Afghanistan. Despite Afghanistan being taken over by the Taliban, she vowed to stay in Afghanistan and continue her humanitarian efforts by actively involving in empowerment of Afghan women.


Early life

Born in
Kandahar Kandahar (; Kandahār, , Qandahār) is a List of cities in Afghanistan, city in Afghanistan, located in the south of the country on the Arghandab River, at an elevation of . It is Afghanistan's second largest city after Kabul, with a population ...
, Afghanistan in 1978, in a
Pashtun Pashtuns (, , ; ps, پښتانه, ), also known as Pakhtuns or Pathans, are an Iranian ethnic group who are native to the geographic region of Pashtunistan in the present-day countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They were historically re ...
family, to Mayor of Kandahar,
Ghulam Haider Hamidi Ghulam Haider Hamidi ( ps, غلام حیدر حمیدی, also spelled Ghulam Haidar Hameedi and also known as Henry Hamidi; 1945 – 27 July 2011) was the Mayor of Kandahar in Afghanistan. his family fled to Pakistan, then to the United Sta ...
. Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980, she along with her family emigrated to
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 24 ...
in 1981 at the age of four as a refugee and lived in
Quetta Quetta (; ur, ; ; ps, کوټه‎) is the tenth List of cities in Pakistan by population, most populous city in Pakistan with a population of over 1.1 million. It is situated in Geography of Pakistan, south-west of the country close to the ...
. Later, she moved to the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
with her family in 1988 and was raised up near Washington DC. She obtained her bachelor's degree with a double major in the religious studies and gender studies from the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United S ...
.


Early career

She returned to her native country Afghanistan in 2003 and became a permanent resident in the country. She decided to return to her motherland after the
September 11, 2001 attack The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks The following is a list of terrorist incidents that have not been carried out by a state or its forces (see state terrorism and st ...
in the US and vowed to reconstruct and develop her native country Afghanistan. On her return to Afghanistan, she served as a manager of the Women's Income Generation Project for Afghans for Civil Society. She pioneered and spearheaded as a prominent activist with Women's Income Generation Project for Afghans for Civil Society by providing social programs and activities for women who resided in Kandahar City. She was chosen as one of the 18 finalists for the
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2007 Hero Award and was also selected by
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as the "Personality or the Week". In 2008, she founded Kandahar Treasure which is regarded as the first women owned and women run social enterprise in Kandahar Province. She has written articles and contributed for various publications such as
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,
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,
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,
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
,
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and
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. She co-authored and published a book along with Mary Littrell titled ''Embroidering within Boundaries: Afghan Women Creating a Future'' in 2017. She also served on the advisory boards of Open Society Afghanistan, Afghanistan Institute for Civil Society and Afghan Women Chamber of Commerce and Industries.


Ministry of Education

In 2020, Hamidi was appointed as the acting head of the Ministry of Education in Afghanistan, becoming the first woman in 30 years to lead the education ministry in the country. She stated strong support for initiatives especially targeting girls. In December that same year, the Afghan parliament rejected a vote of confidence for Hamidi in the role. Then, in January 2021, Hamidi fired 11 ministry of education advisers. The suspended advisers said there were plans to fire another 1,400 employees in the near future, with one fired employee claiming "Hamidi is practising nepotism in the Ministry of Education, she is dealing with the issues politically and in a biased way." In March 2021, Afghanistan's Education Ministry barred schoolgirls older than 12 from singing at public events. A Ministry spokeswoman, Najeeba Arian, said the decision was made after suggestions by students and parents. The decision sparked outrage on social media platforms and criticism of Hamidi. Some observers said that these were policy maneuvers promoted by Hamidi to appease hardline religious parliamentarians. The ministry then described the ban as "misunderstood", saying it was related to measures to clamp down on mass gatherings between girls and boys in a bid to stop the spread of Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). By early April, the Ministry backtracked on a decision, with Arian issuing a statement claiming that the letter did not actually reflect the official stance of the ministry. In 2020, the education ministry faced a backlash for decreeing that students receive all lessons during their first three years of schooling in mosques to help inject an “Islamic spirit” into the students, but after public criticism, this decision was also reversed. In July 2021, speaking at the Global Education Summit in London, Hamidi said she was confident in her country's security forces to prevent the Taliban from completely taking over all of Afghanistan and that she feared their return. “My biggest fear is, God forbid, a return of 1996 when, literally, girls were pulled out of school, schools were shut down, female teachers were sent home, female workers in any sector were sent home.” When several high-profile politicians, including the Afghan president,
Ashraf Ghani Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan politician, academic, and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was overthrown by the Taliban. Born in L ...
, fled from Afghanistan during the Fall of Kabul in August 2021, Hamidi decided to stay in Afghanistan to try to continue to head education efforts. In an interview with
BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and S ...
, she expressed her shock regarding the fleeing of Ghani and revealed that she is scared of the consequences she might face. On August 23, 2021, an Afghan news agency tweeted a photo of Hamidi meeting with the Taliban, which many assumed meant she was still acting education minister. But on August 29, news accounts quoted "the new acting higher education minister, Abdul Baqi Haqqani" in stories on the Taliban requiring all classes to be separated by gender.


Bibliography

* Hamidi, Rangina (2017). ''Embroidering within Boundaries: Afghan Women Creating a Future''


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamidi, Rangina Afghan refugees 21st-century Afghan women writers Afghan women activists Afghan women's rights activists 21st-century Afghan educators Afghan academics Afghan politicians Afghan feminists American women writers American women educators Afghan emigrants to Pakistan Afghan emigrants to the United States American people of Pashtun descent University of Virginia alumni 1978 births Living people 21st-century American women