A R C H I V E S
Madinat al-Muslimeen Islamic Message Board
| From Crawling on the Ground to Holding Her Head Up |
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| Halima |
| 08/19/03 at 01:59:22 |
| From Crawling on the Ground to Holding Her Head Up High By Setareh Saedi It was during my regular field visits in 2000 to supervise the first year of implementation of the DFID-UNICEF project in Iran, which focused on the education of refugee Afghan girls, that I came across 12-year-old Zahra Tajik. Living with her parents, three sisters and two brothers in a rural desert area in the southeast, Zahra was a polio victim unable to walk. I felt traumatized as my eyes fell on this young girl who used bricks in her hands as she struggled to propel herself along the dusty pathways of the village where she lived – called, most rightfully, Dashteh Zahmatkeshan (The Plain of Hard Workers). Under the circumstances, I was not at all surprised to learn that Zahra spent most of her days at home doing almost nothing. Approaching her gently, I started a casual conversation with her and got to know her better, up to the moment when I felt comfortable enough asking her what her greatest single wish would be. "A wheelchair with which I can go to the village school," she responded straightaway, as if she'd been anticipating the question for a long time. Naturally, I couldn't wait to get back to Tehran and buy and freight her the dream chair. Around a year later, I revisited the same village in my rounds only to find Zahra attending our classes. She was doing very well, thanks to one of her brothers, who would take her to school every morning and bring her back at noon. By sheer coincidence, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, a renowned Iranian film director who was researching a film project on Afghan children's education in Iran, later encountered Zahra. He got in touch with me through her, informing me that a surgeon in Tehran would be willing to perform a series of seven operations over four months, thus enabling Zahra eventually to walk with braces. Today, thanks to Mr. Makhmalbaf's generously agreeing to pay for the hospital fees and the surgeon's free-of-charge operations, Zahra's wheelchair is no longer needed. She walks to school and back every day, passing all her tests with flying colors. Yet the operations and the braces have not only changed Zahra from a left-out invalid to an active schoolgirl, but also transformed her dreams. When asked about her greatest ambition now, she confidently says, "I want to be a nurse in the same hospital that treated me when I grow up, so that I can help others like myself." Setareh Saedi is a Project Assistant with UNICEF Tehran. |
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