Fatima Jafari - Afghanistan

I never forget the moment when I stepped into the land called Afghanistan. I was living as a refugee in Iran for a long time. Seeing my country was my dream. Seeing a ruined and destroyed postwar Afghanistan was shocking for me, a 13-year-old girl who was always dreaming to see a beautiful country of her own. That was the start of my today’s life. By looking at poor children who were begging or working on the streets, I got inspired to study and work hard so that one day there would be no child working on the streets instead of going to school. I love living in a world where there is peace. Where there is no war, so I am fighting for bringing that peaceful world of dreams to real life. I never liked the world’s perception about Afghanistan, as a terrorist country, so I became a member of a photography group under project Being We the People. I took pictures of my people, young, old, children, men, women, streets, cities and Afghan traditions in order to show the world the realities of Afghan life and Afghan people. The aim of our photography was to eliminate the world’s wrong view towards my country. Our pictures were exhibited in the National Museum of Kabul in Afghanistan and in the Constitution Center in Philadelphia, USA. Those pictures will always represent Afghanistan in the future. But that was not the end of my journey of bringing universal peace. I will continue doing all what I could to bring a positive change and to make my dreams come true.

May Peace Prevail on Earth.