Shamila Kohestani (August 2008)
Photo courtesy of Ruby Washington/The New York Times
The first award from the Fund was made to Shamila Kohestani, who is from Kabul, Afghanistan. Shamila, a former captain of the Afghanistan Girls Soccer Team and a recipient of the ESPN-ESPY Arthur Ashe Courage Award, is now in her junior year at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey.
Shamila in the news
The New York Times
In world religion class, Shamila Kohestani is neither the adolescent who defied the Taliban in Afghanistan nor the symbol of liberation that shared the stage with stars from Hollywood and sports at the 2006 ESPY Awards. She is a teenager whose lips move as she takes notes, and whose list of words to look up grows exponentially each minute, each hour and each day.
Some of her classmates at Blair Academy here know that Kohestani, 19, is the captain of the Afghanistan national women’s soccer team. Some are aware that she is Muslim. Most know her only as the striking young woman who is eager to stock her iPod with any kind of music they recommend. [read full article]
ESPN
A group of Afghan female athletes who are spreading the sport of soccer to their fellow countrywomen will receive the Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2006 ESPYs.
The girls play in organized soccer leagues in Afghanistan. The leagues formed after a handful of Afghan girls traveled to the United States in the summer of 2004 to attend soccer clinics as part of the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange. Two of girls who visited the U.S. that summer and still play soccer — Shamila Kohestani, 18, and Roia Ahmad, 16, will accept the award.
“Just five years removed from the Taliban’s rule, these girls are helping to spark a women’s revolution by… [read full article]
NY Daily News
Five times a day, on the third floor of a boxy brick dormitory, a reserve forward on the Drew University women’s soccer team spreads out a special rug, sits down and tries to figure out which direction Mecca is.
For 10 or 15 minutes, Shamila Kohestani, of Kabul, Afghanistan, quiets her mind and says her prayers. Then she hustles back to her new western life, complete with fingernails painted pink, her name taped to the dorm-room door and a laptop that is rarely far from her side. [read full article]
Asbury Park Press
Shamila Kohestani arrived on the Drew University campus in August with one suitcase containing a few clothes and a handful of pictures of her family.
Those were the sum of her belongings. Kohestani, a native of Kabul, Afghanistan, is used to living with few of the modern comforts that her classmates bring to college.
But Kohestani did bring a determination to work hard and make the most of a one-of-a-kind opportunity for someone who had lost five years of her formal education under the repressive Taliban regime.[read full article]