I have a dream.
I am Mariam Amiri. I’m 16 and live in a country where being a girl is treated like a crime. We can’t even talk to our peers because our voices are now deemed to be ‘aurat’ – an intimate thing that’s immoral to expose.
I live in a city called Kabul. It’s the city of shattered dreams. It was the city where millions of dreams once lived and strived, but in the past three years, they’ve been slowly snuffed out.
It’s been difficult for many here, but especially for girls. Many of my peers have been detained by force, and others have been subjected to early and forced marriages to “protect” them. We’ve had millions of victims, and I don’t want to have any more.
I want everyone to be happy and to have a chance to reach their dreams.
I have a dream I want to achieve. My parents are illiterate, and just as I am suffering now from not being able to go to school, they have been suffering for 28 years. It’s a suffering that has caused their young hair to turn white, their teeth to fall out, and made them endure countless pains. They wanted to study just like me. My mother wanted to be a doctor, but her dream stayed just that. She was in the second grade when the Taliban first came to power, and she was immediately thrust into the hardships of life.
My father also had a dream. He wanted to be an engineer. But the harsh Taliban times of the 90s meant he could not continue to study further. Sometimes my father remembers the suffering he’s endured in these28 years. Even though he was a boy, he was deprived of education. Life showed him a side he did not deserve.
I have a dream I have to achieve – it’s for my parents to become literate. They are in dire need of it. They rely on finding other people to read letters and papers for them. Sometimes they ask us to write for them too. My parents have always told my siblings and I, “My children, study with all your heart and soul, so that you won’t be in need like us.” Sometimes it’s hard for me to grasp the full meaning of this.
I want my parents to be able to read and write without needing anyone else. I have decided to start with my family and parents. You can also start at home with your parents to help them learn to read and write.
Let’s all make our parents literate, so that we can have a literate world. When our country is literate, I believe we will all achieve our dreams.
Mariam Amiri
October, 2024
