Dear friends,

Hi again from me, Lois. I’m writing this with encouragement from my friend Kathy to ask your help again for another Afghan student of mine. I have been supporting this student for three years but now have the opportunity to help him get to safety. I am looking for others to help assemble $2,500 in a short amount of time.

This is Rahim. He was my student in a U.S. Embassy–funded education community development program for Afghan youth in 2017 when he was just 16 years old. He is now 23 and for the last three years has been on the run as a refugee, fleeing the Taliban. Rahim is very sweet, innocent, and loving. He is a Hazara ethnic minority in Afghanistan. There is evidence that the Taliban have committed genocide against this minority group. He is a refugee who needs a bit of help overcoming a hurdle current in his journey toward living freely and safely. This is an abbreviated version of his story.

From 2017 – 2021 in Afghanistan, Rahim organized and led educational and basic needs programs that helped women and youth in his community as part of my course and his own activism and volunteer work. For this, he was targeted by the Taliban. In August 2021, after they had taken over Afghanistan, Taliban soldiers were showing Rahim’s photo to neighbors and to women he had helped in his volunteer work. They were looking for him to take him in for questioning, from which he would certainly not have returned. He fled to Pakistan and was there as a refugee for over two years waiting for his special designation “P1” visa for alumni of U.S. Embassy programs to resettle in the U.S. Visa processing in Pakistan was stalled, however. After two years there was no movement of any kind.

Rahim had been studying English online in Pakistan and passed the language requirements for universities. He began pursuing a lead to get into an Italian university. Also, he has been awarded a full scholarship by George Fox University in Oregon , thanks to efforts from human rights supporters there. However, he can’t get a student visa because he cannot promise to return to his home country after he finishes school, which is a condition of that visa category. Thinking he could have a better shot at getting an Italian visa outside Pakistan, Rahim left Pakistan in the spring of this year. He traveled to a different country in the region which recently began deporting Afghans back to Afghanistan. If he is deported, he will most certainly meet a tragic fate.

That brings us here. The situation in Pakistan has changed dramatically with the U.S. DOS finally processing Afghan visas--along with a commitment to expediency. Many of Rahim’s peers have recently received approval to resettle in the U.S. This, coupled with the dangers in his current situation, have pushed Rahim to see he must return to Pakistan. He plans to hire the same broker who helped him move between countries safely before. He has connections in Islamabad and will return for the processing of his P1 visa to the US, or to further his efforts to get an Italian visa and go to school there while he waits for the P1 visa. He needs $2,500 for the broker to take him to safety in Pakistan, with a valid visa to be there. I have been helping him and he needs more than I can give at this time.

Once he is in Pakistan, I will make additional actions to try to help him get to the US. I will apply for Welcome Corps private resettlement sponsorship of him. There is some evidence that may expedite his visa process. It will also bring him to my local area (Brattleboro, Vermont) where I can care for him until he moves on to George Fox.

Thank you for hearing my request. If you are able, please consider a donation to Rahim’s GiveButter account, so we try to save and improve this young man’s life together. I commit that all funds will be used to support Rahim.

Help Rahim move toward a visa to safety

By Lois Scott-Conley

Help Rahim move toward a visa to safety