WE ARE MAKING HISTORY NOW

Sohaila Sanie Sheki

Dear all,

Now I want to introduce to you a very talented, exceptionally brave and hardworking woman, Mrs. Sohaila Sanie Shekib.

Mrs. Shekib has been successful in every role in her life. This brave woman fought with all sorts of social injustices and faced different types of challenges throughout her life, but she has always remained faithful and honest to herself, her family and everyone around her. At a very young age, she lost her husband. At that time her only child was one year old. Since then, she never got re-married, but decided to be a mother and also a father to her son.

Because of this extraordinary woman’s hard work and sacrifices, her son is a successful Immigration Attorney in Fairfax, Virginia and happily married now.

 

Mrs. Shekib is a Civil and Industrial Structures Engineer. In 1980, she graduated from Kabul University and Polytechnic Institute Kabul, Afghanistan. Right after graduation, she started working as a Civil Engineer in the Construction Unit with the Ministry of Education, prior to migrating to the USA in 1982.

When she arrived to the United States of America (USA), she decided to pursue her education in the USA as well.  Ms. Shekib received a certificate in computer programming from Strayer College, Arlington Virginia in 1983; a certificate in suburban development from Northern Virginia Community College in 1985, and a certificate as a Designated Plan Examiner (DPE) from George Mason University in partnership with the Engineers and Surveyors Institute (ESI) for Northern Virginia jurisdictions.

Mrs. Shekib is currently the president and founder of Sanie Consulting Group (SCG), LLC. Since December 2006, she has been providing land development services in the Washington Metro area.  Ms. Shekib has over 25 years of experience in land development civil engineering from concept to final design in the United States and 1-1/2 years of experience in Afghanistan.  She is a Designated Plans Examiner (DPE) in Northern Virginia jurisdictions.

Prior to establishing her own civil engineering firm, Ms. Shekib was the head of the Design Department at EMSI Engineering, Inc. from November 2004 to December of 2006; Project Team Leader at Bowman Consulting Group, P. C., from 1997 to 2004. At the same time, she took on added responsibility from June 2002 to mid-November 2004 as Vice President at Bowman International, where she provided master planning and feasibility phase to design development phase for the Kandahar Valley (Hieno Meena) project in Afghanistan.

From 1988 to 1997, she was project manager at VIKA Inc. and from 1983 to 1988, she was a project engineer at Urban Engineering. Ms. Shekib is involved in various community activities and has been very active with the Society of Afghan Engineers (SAE), where she is currently the Chairperson of the Board of Directors.

Moreover, Mrs. Shekib contributed to the Afghanistan Reconstruction and Planning meetings at USAID and the State Department. In the past, she has been actively involved with the design of numerous religious facility projects and she undertook the Mustafa Center Mosque project from concept design up to the construction phase as the project manager.

Recently she has been working on the Mustafa Funeral Chapel project as the project manager from planning to final construction plan design. Mrs. Shekib has been a Member of the Engineers and Surveyors Institute (ESI) since 1991 as well as a Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

Dear Mrs. Shekib, we [Afghan Women] are very proud of you and thank you for all your hard-work! You are a pride for all women!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of Virginia’s most Feared Wrestlers

 

Dear all,

• As a Human Rights Activist and as an Advocate, this time, I am going to introduce to you a very talented and hardworking Afghan-youth living in the United States. He is Zaki Mohsin. His noble parents left Afghanistan to flee the Taliban and for a better future for their children. Now their son made them very proud.

Mr. Zaki Mohsin is 19 years old, but he is one of Virginia’s most feared wrestlers.  Moreover, he is a senior at Edison High school in Alexandria, Virginia. At such a young age, he is one of the region’s most dominant high school athletes in sports. As soon as, Mohsin arrived in the USA, in five weeks, he found himself at the center of a wrestling mat at J.R. Tucker High. Mohsin has had to adapt to wrestling exactly the way he adjusted to a new country and a new lifestyle.  His father was awarded a Special Immigrant Visa; therefore, the entire family could move to the United States at the same time. Now they all are Permanent Residents of the United States and very soon, they will become US citizens. The former judo phenom won a state championship in his first season wrestling for Edison, and his goal is to defend at the 5A state meet at Oscar Smith High in Chesapeake.

Mohsin is known for being very active, ambitious and friendly. When he was 12 years old, he won a gold medal at his first international judo tournament in Moscow. Zaki Mohsin reeled in more medals in Sambo and kurash — martial arts similar to judo — in Uzbekistan, Nepal and Taiwan. He trained for five hours a day, six days a week, before and after school, and competed at training camps in South Korea and Thailand. Eventually, Mohsin became his country’s top-ranked junior judoka.

Dear Zaki Mohsin, we all are proud of you and wish you further happiness and success!

WE ARE MAKING HISTORY NOW

Shakila Salihi

Dear all,

The goals and objectives of Support Humanitarian Rights of Afghan Women (SHRAW), are to introduce hundreds of educated, hardworking, and talented women; especially those who have devoted their lives to helping others.

Unfortunately, the hard work of most brave and philanthropic women remains unnoticed. Therefore, SHRAW steps in with a clear vision and objectives to present the strength, sacrifices, openness, courage, intuition, empathy and modesty of women so that the world may get to know these extraordinary women.

This time, you will read about Mrs. Shakila Jan Salihi.

Mrs. Salihi was born in Kabul, Afghanistan.  After graduating from Zarghoona High School in 1980, she had to take Concur Exam, which is Afghanistan’s university entrance exam.  Luckily, she received the top score among most students; therefore, she was awarded a scholarship to pursue her higher education in Berlin, Germany.

Since she was a very talented and hardworking student, her family was very proud of her great and unique achievements and accomplishments; therefore, very happily, her noble family allowed her to travel to Germany to pursue her higher education.

Mrs. Salihi finished her education successfully. She received a master’s degree in economics.  Once more, Mrs. Salihi made her family proud of her academic achievements and her decision of returning back to Afghanistan to help her country.

Very soon, Mrs, Salihi started to work at Ministry of Planning in Afghanistan from 1985 to 1987.

Subsequently,  she got married. Now she is happily married and has four children, two daughters and two sons.

Later on, due to Afghanistan’s severe civil wars and life threatening security reasons, she had to leave Afghanistan. Like millions of other Afghans, she immigrated with her family to Pakistan.

She lived in Islamabad for twenty-one years. During those two decades in Pakistan, she was able to help many families and individuals in learning languages.

At first, she started teaching German at a Language Centre and then she decided to run the courses at her own home. However, due to security concerns and some other problems only women were allowed to enrol and take German classes with Mrs. Salihi.

Fortunately, all students of Mrs. Salihi passed the German language proficiency test, which is still one of the requirements for getting a German visa and one of the biggest hurdles in the way of Afghan and Pakistani women in Pakistan.

In 2012, Mrs. Salihi left Pakistan and returned back to Afghanistan with her family. When she arrived in Afghanistan, she already knew, what she would want to do.  She expanded her German classes and decided to continue to work to educate youth and women of all ages.

As a Women’s Rights Advocate, she has been able to help many young women in need of different social services.  Due to security concerns, some women do not want to go to school or university, but Mrs. Salihi has always been there for those types of youth and women and she has always been able to help them stand on their own feed.

Due to tireless efforts of Mrs. Salihi, hundreds of young individuals received German visas, some of them are highly educated now.  Currently, most of those educated women are working and supporting their families.

The positive impacts that Mrs. Salihi have had on Afghan women’s lives are immeasurable. Therefore, we [Afghan women] want to thank and appreciate all her hard work with our hearts and souls.
Dear Mrs. Salihi, you are a treasure of wisdom, patience and perseverance. It has been decades that you have been fighting for your own rights and for the rights of other women around you to get an education.

Thanks for all that you have been doing for all women!