{"id":8309,"date":"2025-11-12T01:20:35","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T04:20:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/after-facing-deportation-from-qatar-following-usaid-cuts-3-afghan-women-find-refuge-at-u-of-regina\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T01:20:35","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T04:20:35","slug":"after-facing-deportation-from-qatar-following-usaid-cuts-3-afghan-women-find-refuge-at-u-of-regina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/12\/after-facing-deportation-from-qatar-following-usaid-cuts-3-afghan-women-find-refuge-at-u-of-regina\/","title":{"rendered":"After facing deportation from Qatar following USAID cuts, 3 Afghan women find refuge at U of Regina"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Spogmai Hashemi says when she stepped outside Regina\u2019s airport and felt the cold Saskatchewan breeze hit her face, she was immediately hit with a sense of nostalgia and homesickness.Unlike Qatar, where she had been living, both Canada and Afghanistan \u2014 where she\u2019s originally from \u2014 have cold winters.But Hashemi says she was also filled with a feeling of safety after finally reaching Canada.\u201cI know where I\u2019m standing. I\u2019m in a safe land and I\u2019m on land of right and freedoms,\u201d Hashemi said.It was the end of a long journey that started years earlier in Kabul, at the American University of Afghanistan, before the Taliban resumed power. The 2021 takeover forced Hashemi and her fellow students to flee to Qatar in order to pursue their degrees.She and dozens of other women were attending universities in Qatar on scholarships completely funded by the  U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, program. With its closure earlier this year, they were at risk of being deported back to Afghanistan, where girls can only attend school up to Grade 6 and women are barred from universities \u2014 rules the women had broken in Qatar.\u201cEven when I was inside the airplane, I was still thinking maybe something will happen,\u201d said Hashemi, describing her anxiety on the flight to Regina, as she worried there would be further immigration issues.Instead, Hashemi and two other Afghan scholars were met at the airport by University of Regina staff and were greeted with hugs from Friba Rezayee, the woman who spearheaded the efforts to get them to Saskatchewan.Friba Rezayee, centre right, poses with Spogmai Hashemi and two other young women she spent months trying to get to Canada at the University of Regina on Oct. 31, 2025. Rezayee says she dressed as a U of R student for the girls\u2019 first Canadian Halloween. (Katie Swyers\/CBC)The three women will start classes at the U of R in January. They are the first of 25 to 30 Afghan women whom Rezayee\u2019s non-profit, Women Leaders of Tomorrow, and the university are hoping to bring to Saskatchewan.\u201cThey were in a dire, critical, horrible situation,\u201d said Rezayee. \u201cQatar doesn\u2019t have any pathway for resettlement for refugees.\u201dEven working as a woman in the Middle Eastern country can be difficult, she said.The U of R\u2019s Project Resilience scholarship program \u2014 which helps students affected by war or political violence in their home countries study at the school \u2014 and Women Leaders of Tomorrow were able to raise more than $815,000 to bring the women to Saskatchewan.But between political red tape and Canada\u2019s cap on international students, Rezayee said getting the first three students to Regina was \u201cvery difficult.\u201dBetween the politics, fundraising and multiple setbacks, \u201cthis is definitely one of the biggest challenges I\u2019ve ever taken on in girls\u2019 education and women\u2019s education in Afghanistan,\u201d she said.An Afghan herself and one of that country\u2019s first two female Olympic athletes, Rezayee created the Vancouver-based Women Leaders of Tomorrow to help pair Afghan girls with scholarships in the U.S. and Canada.The federal government\u2019s cap on international student visas \u2014 which saw 36,417 international study permits issued from January to June of this year, compared with 125,034 the year before \u2014 is \u201cvery unfair and unjust,\u201d said Rezayee, who says the Afghan women\u2019s situation differs from other international students.With limited resources in European countries and the shift in U.S. international policy, \u201cCanada is the only hope\u201d for the women, she said.\u201dThe world is abandoning Afghan women and girls,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s very unfair and it makes me angry.\u201dRezayee, right, met Hashemi and the two other women at Regina\u2019s airport and spent the end of October helping them settle into their new lives. Seeing them arrive in Canada was \u2018precious and priceless,\u2019 she says. (Submitted by Spogmai Hashemi)When the women reached out to her from Qatar, after they lost their scholarship funding, Rezayee said she knew she had to help, but also knew she would need public support.\u201cI was hopeful that there is going to be a solution for them, because there has to be,\u201d she said. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t just ignore 30-plus Afghan women in a dire, horrible situation.\u201dAfter she reached out to universities across the country, \u201cthe only university who stepped up was University of Regina and Project Resilience,\u201d said Rezayee.Ethical imperative to help: U of RUniversity of Regina president Jeff Keshen said the school felt an ethical imperative to help.\u201cThese young women were in desperate circumstances. We have the ability to house them on campus, to feed them on campus,\u201d he said.Keshen said it was a relief when the first three women made it to Regina at the end of October. But there was \u201ca great deal of frustration\u201d with the bureaucracy of processing their visas and the \u201cvery slow and sometimes cumbersome [immigration] process,\u201d she said.\u201dThese women were really in limbo, and in many cases there\u2019s a number who are still in limbo,\u201d he said.While three more women are currently in the visa approval process to come to Regina, according to the U of R, many more still remain in Qatar, most with precarious visa status.WATCH |  Afghan women facing deportation from Qatar now in Regina:Afghan women facing deportation from Qatar are now in Regina to continue studiesDozens of women are facing deportation from Qatar after the closure of the USAID program ended their scholarships. Now some of those women have made it to Regina.The university and Rezayee say they are triaging which women come based on who has to leave Qatar first. Keshen said the situation for the women still overseas is \u201cfluid.\u201d Malta has agreed to take some students but there is confusion over how long they can stay there. The same is true for those in Qatar, who face the risk of any day getting notices saying, \u201cI\u2019m sorry, but you can\u2019t stay here any longer and you have to go home,\u201d said Keshen.Thanks to donations from across Canada and abroad, Keshen said there\u2019s \u201cenough money in the pot\u201d to help many more students.A \u2018life-changing\u2019 opportunityHashemi says she and the others are grateful to everyone who helped and for \u201cevery penny\u201d that was donated.\u201cIt really means a lot for us. It\u2019s a hope for us that we are not forgotten \u2014 we are not left behind,\u201d she said.She wants to make the most of her opportunity and one day give back to Canada, she said.Before the Taliban resumed control of Afghanistan in 2021, Hashemi was studying political science and aspired to be a diplomat, serving her country abroad. She now plans to pursue her public sector dreams in Canada, she said.\u201cI want to contribute to your community \u2026 no matter where I am, which level I\u2019ll be working, even if I\u2019m a public servant or if I\u2019m going to be a simple teacher somewhere.\u201dBut Hashemi and the two other women say they have not forgotten their friends still abroad, hoping to come.\u201cI hope they get all of them here, because all of them went through a lot and they need \u2026 the peace of mind so they can focus on their education,\u201d Hashemi said.The opportunity to come to Canada is more than just education, she said.\u201dIt\u2019s life-changing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Spogmai Hashemi says when she stepped outside Regina\u2019s airport and felt the cold Saskatchewan breeze hit her face, she was immediately hit with a sense of nostalgia and homesickness.Unlike Qatar, where she had been living, both Canada and Afghanistan \u2014 where she\u2019s originally from \u2014 have cold winters.But Hashemi says she was also filled with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8310,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,123,1],"tags":[116,122],"class_list":["post-8309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-saskatchewan","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-saskatchewan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}