Support a Refugee Family’s Path to Safety and Education

My name is Zahra, and I am Hazara, an ethnic minority in Afghanistan. We have faced long-standing discrimination and persecution, including targeted violence, due to our ethnicity and religious beliefs. I am 23 years old and fortunate to have escaped the oppressive Taliban regime in my country, where it is illegal even to hear a woman’s voice in public. I now live in Toronto, studying Health Information Management at George Brown College.

I am asking for help to bring my family to Canada where my siblings can pursue the education they were denied by the Taliban, and where my family can begin to rebuild their shattered lives.

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Our Story

In 2022, a bomb exploded in a Kaaj educational centre where 700 Hazara students were preparing for their university exams, including my sister. More than 300 innocent lives were lost, and everyone was injured. Thankfully, my younger sister Laila survived, but she struggles to recover from the trauma. She had always loved studying, and dreamed of becoming a pilot. But after that horrific day, her spirit was shattered, and she lost all hope of pursuing her dream. Then, a year and a half later, my brother—who is only 18 years old—was arrested by the Taliban. He was brutally beaten, leaving deep physical and emotional scars. He had dreamed of becoming a software engineer, but because of the ongoing violence and instability, he was forced to abandon his education. After these events, my family had no choice but to sell everything and leave our country.

My father, who worked so hard in Afghanistan to support our education, my mother, who was the foundation of our home, and my two siblings now live in very difficult and uncertain conditions. My oldest sister had already fled to Indonesia where she is waiting with her young son for resettlement in Canada. The tragedies we all faced before leaving Afghanistan continue to haunt us.

It is my deepest wish to raise enough money to sponsor my family and bring them safely to Canada. Here they can have a chance to live in peace and have a better future. Your support will directly help sponsor my family to Canada, covering essential expenses like rent and food for one year.

Together, we can give them the chance to live in peace. Any contribution, no matter the amount, would mean the world to us. Please can you help us?

More about my family:

My journey here has been challenging, but my love for my family and our shared dreams keep me going. I grew up in Kabul with my family—my father, my mother, and my two sisters and my little brother. My mother was the heart of our family, always keeping us together with her warmth and love, while my father, although uneducated, worked tirelessly as a driver to support our education. He dreamed of a better future for us, and we all shared that dream. As children, we loved to spend time together, playing in the garden and celebrating Afghan traditions. Family and education were central to our lives. I was determined to pursue medicine because I always wanted to help others, and becoming a doctor was my biggest dream.

In 2021, I had completed three years of my medical studies at Kabul Medical University, and was close to fulfilling that dream. But then, the Taliban took control. They closed down the universities, and with them, they crushed all my hopes. When I realized that I could no longer continue my education I was devastated. It was an unbearable shock to my spirit.

But I didn’t give up. I committed myself to learning English through an online tutoring program. After months of searching for other opportunities, I found the PASSAGE program in Canada. They gave me a loan, arranged for my visas, and I moved to Toronto to continue my studies. Now, while I am grateful to be studying here, I am burdened by the hardships my family members are enduring where they struggle even to pay the rent. As refugees in Indonesia and in Tajikistan they cannot legally work, and so they cannot afford even to send my siblings to school. With your help, I wish to raise enough money to bring them to Canada where they can start a new chapter of their lives, free from fear and suffering.