Thesis: Resiliency Amidst the Fragmented Lives of Afghan Refugee Women, By Rosmin Moez Bhanji, McMaster University
Excerpts:
My decision to pursue this study was framed by my own experience as an immigrant woman who came to Canada over 35 years ago. Although I have been here for over three decades, I feel that I am treated as an ‘outsider.’… The second reason that I wanted to pursue this study was my involvement with this population. I was appointed as a chairperson for the settlement of the newly arriving Afghan Ismaili families in the early 1990s. In my work with these families, and especially with the women, I noticed the significant strength and courage of these women who had come into a completely new environment and had suffered so many traumas. They were eager to learn, trying to cope with the multiple challenges of looking after their families, working to support their families, and trying to learn the English language in a different culture and environment. After seeing their courage and fortitude, I was motivated to travel to Afghanistan to work for an international nongovernmental organization (NGO). For almost 10 years I worked with various women’s groups, and their inner strength and resiliency amazed me. Although Afghans have a complex culture and diversity of experiences, they are very warm and hospitable and show enormous endurance beyond the imagination of many of us in the industrialised world.
Ismailimail 