A Second Chance

Born in 1998, Farida’s life took drastic turns during her childhood, more than the majority of people experience in their entire lives. She was born into a kind and loving family in Kabul, during a time when civil war was tearing throughout the country. When she was a young girl, a stray rocket struck her home, taking the life of her uncle and instantly creating a pile of rubble where her childhood home previously stood. With nowhere else to go, her family was forced to flee the fighting by moving to a small village. Unlike Kabul, life in this village revolved only around farming. Farida described, “there were no schools, no education, just survival”.

As she grew older, Farida listened to the radio to stay connected with the world outside of the village. After the fall of the Taliban regime, she began to hear accounts of girls returning to school in the city. When she heard this news, she said, “my heart ached with longing. I wanted nothing more than to go to school and learn”. Farida knew there was no future for her in the village, and so she pleaded with her father to let live with her older sister in the city so that she could attend school. Her father refused, believing that Farida was too young to live apart from her parents. At that moment, she thought "education was a dream slipping further away”.

But she held tightly onto her dream, and it slowly began to come true. Through relentless persuasion, her father conceded his stance and gave Farida permission to live with her sister. Although she was still very young, she made the difficult move to leave her parents. She described her choice as “chasing the light of education”, knowing that in the war-torn world of Afghanistan, education was the key to having a bright future. 

Farida threw herself into her schooling, living with her sister and brother-in-law and facing countless challenges and hardships as she adapted to her new surroundings. But she held on, determined to finish school, find a job, and one day bring her family to the city so that they could live a peaceful life together. Her father was no longer able to farm in the village, so she worked with the hope of restoring their life to how it was before her family had lost their home.

That was her dream.

But unlike her dream to go to school, it remained just a dream. Farida was in eleventh grade when her father passed away from a heart attack. Upon hearing of her father’s death, her heart was shattered. “The world I had just begun to see filled with light through education suddenly turned dark again”, she recounted. She no longer felt that she had the strength to fight through the pain and challenges life kept throwing at her. Yet she did all she could to continue to help her family, who had been left alone in the village. She brought her mother and younger sister to live with her in the city. Every day she cried beside them.

Farida’s mother was heartbroken and overwhelmed by the grief of losing her husband, and fell seriously ill as a result of her pain. Farida had no money for her treatment. As she struggled to continue supporting both her mother and younger sister, she described: “I would look up to the sky with tearful eyes and whisper, ‘God, please help me… I can’t lose my mother too.’”

For a girl who didn’t believe in her own strength, Farida proved to be incredibly resilient through her situation. She continued school during the day, and started teaching literacy classes and doing tailoring work in the evenings. With what little money she earned, she tried to cover her mother’s medical expenses, doing everything she could to keep her alive and ease her pain. She continued in this way for about a year, until she finally graduated from high school and entered university. Soon after, she was offered a job as a math teacher at the very school she had graduated from. She had been the top student in her class, and the school believed in her potential.

Farida’s days were filled with studying and teaching. With money for proper treatment, her mother began to get better, and her life started to feel meaningful again. As she grew older, marriage proposals began to come, one after another. But each time, she turned them down. Most of the families were overly strict and conservative, and would not allow her to continue working or living with the freedom she had fought for her entire life. Any time she was asked why she refused to marry, she responded, by saying, “I couldn’t imagine giving up my education, my job, or my dreams for a life behind closed doors once again.”

Eventually, a proposal came from a family who promised that they wouldn’t stop Farida from working or living freely, and that they would make her happy. She believed them, thinking that her dark days were finally over, that happiness had finally found her.

Instead, accepting the proposal led her to a darker time than she had ever experienced.

The wedding was done in a traditional way, much differently than how Farida wanted. When her groom took her back to his home, the first thing his family did was take away her phone. They said, “In our family, women are not allowed to have phones.” Then they told her she wasn’t allowed to visit any relatives. As for her job, they laughed, “forget about it, in our family, women don’t work outside the home.” As each freedom was taken away, Farida saw her worst fears coming true. No matter how hard she’d fought to prevent it, she had become a prisoner. The wings that had brought her to incredible heights had been broken, leaving her to plummet to the ground. The girl who once dreamed of being in society, of teaching, of fulfilling her childhood dreams was now just a sad, broken woman; living like a hundred-year soul in silence and darkness. Everything she had hoped for was gone.

When she started to experience menstrual health problems, her husband’s family wouldn’t allow her to see a doctor. They told her to take homemade remedies, saying she didn’t need a doctor. But without treatment, her condition quickly got worse. The disease spread, her uterus was infected, and eventually she became infertile. Barren, and unable to have children. Every time Farida saw a woman pregnant or holding her baby, she described, “I would just sigh deeply. My heart would ache, and I’d whisper to herself, ‘I wish I could have that too.’”

On top of losing her physical health, Zuahl was also tortured by the cruel words of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. They scoffed at her, saying, “you haven’t given us a child, what good are you? Just do the housework, that’s all you’re good for.” She wasn’t allowed to leave the house, and she wasn’t even allowed to choose what to eat. Many nights, she slept with an empty stomach, crying silently until morning. Secretly, however, she never gave up on learning. Whenever she had even five minutes free, she would grab a book and read, because her love for education was stronger than her pain. 

One day, her niece found the phone number of Ms. Elke, the founder of the IEL Institute. She gave it to Farida and said, “Try speaking to this woman. Maybe she can help you continue your studies.” Farida used her husband’s phone and sent Ms. Elke a message. She told her that she wanted to study, that she needed a chance. Elke immediately added her to IEL’s class. Although she was enrolled in the class, Farida had no phone of her own to connect to the internet. When Elke heard about this, she sent money, and Farida bought a used second-hand phone. That small act of kindness on Elke’s part lit a spark in her life. It was the beginning of a new chapter, a moment that slowly brought color back to the darkness she had been living in. 

Her class time was 4:30 in the morning. She would quietly sneak to a corner of the house under the excuse of praying to join the online class, listening in silence so no one would notice. As soon as she started she began to recall all the lessons she had learned in the past, engaging in the class with a sense of gratefulness like never before. Elke, knowing a bit about Farida’s situation, would often call to check on her. Elke’s manager Wadia Karamkhil also always made time to listen to Farida, to hear her story, and to encourage her. The women rejuvenated her with their words, reminding her of the strength that women can offer. One day, after Farida had been in the class for about a year, they made a life-changing decision: they offered her a position as part of the IEL team, working from home.

When she heard the news, Farida said “it was like a light of hope shining into my dark world.” She started working, and for the first time in a year, she felt free. No more fear, no more stress. She got to know the IEL team better, made amazing friends, and most importantly, had her own salary. She no longer depended on her husband or in-laws for anything. 

With that income, Farida could finally visit a doctor. She had gone years being barren, but for the first time in a long time she had hope again. Hope that one day, she too could become a mother. Around the time when she was regaining her freedom, she was introduced to another American woman. Farida shared the woman’s contact with Ms. Elke, who spoke with her and shared Farida’s story, recounting the emotional and physical abuse she had suffered for years. The woman listened, understood, and decided to help by arranging for Farida to move to Brazil.

It has now been two months since she started living in Brazil, and Farida says she is truly happy. In her own words, she says, “I was rescued from that prison-like home, and now I feel like my wings have been restored. I am a free bird again. I go to church, I attend classes, and I’m searching for a job. Step by step, I’m getting closer to the dreams I’ve had since I was a child. With God’s grace and Ms. Elke’s help, I have been given a second chance at life.”