"I write these words with a heavy heart, filled with a feeling of fear and despair. When the Taliban seized power in my home country, I was robbed of my livelihood and my educational opportunities.” Thus begins the letter Sabira Saei wrote in March 2023. She is desperate, but not hopeless: "The only consolation I have is my passport. I will do everything in my power to leave this place and start a new life.”
The appeal for help is addressed to the German Academic Exchange Service. Since 2021, the DAAD has been offering the "Students at Risk" program, which supports students who are denied the right to education in their country of origin and whose well-being and safety are threatened in their home country. The scholarships provides applicants with the possibility to take up studies in Germany or continue their doctorate. The program, which is funded by the Federal Foreign Office, is named after the German poet Hilde Domin. The writer of Jewish faith had to flee Germany during the Nazi era and lived in the Dominican Republic for a long time. The “Hilde Domin Program” thus enables students to study or research in a safe environment so that they can then "contribute to political, economic and social development in their countries of origin", as the DAAD describes the objective of the funding. The demand is many times greater than the places available. Many applicants recently came from Iran, Belarus, Myanmar and Syria. However, the country of origin with the most scholarship holders is Afghanistan, where young women in particular are suffering from the political situation.
Sabira Saei comes from the Hazara ethnic group, which has suffered discrimination and persecution not only since the recent Taliban takeover. Sabira grew up with four sisters and two brothers, her father is a farmer. In order to pay for their education, the children work alongside school. "Despite the work, I always studied with great passion – often late into the night", says Sabira. Her hard work is rewarded: As the best student in her year, she graduates from high school and starts studying Business Administration at Bamyan University. Here, too, she excels with outstanding achievements, receiving awards from the faculty and earning the highest scores among Economics Faculty students from various departments.