Afghan woman helping her homeland

At age 7, Rahila Muhibi was engaged to marry her 8-year-old cousin in her small, rural village in northeast Afghanistan.

That was before the family fled from the Taliban, living on the run for nearly a decade.

Now, Rahila, 24, is trying to help young women in her home country find hope.

Dressed in business attire, Muhibi spent time this week shadowing Linda Nash, learning what it's like to be a woman in a position of power.

Nash, CEO of PartnerMD, a Richmond-based membership concierge-medical-care company, has become a second mother for Muhibi since the pair first met in 2006.

"We got very connected," said Muhibi, now a senior at Methodist University in Fayetteville, N.C., where she met Sangar Radjov, a former Uzbek exchange student who lived with Nash. Radjov introduced Muhibi and Nash.

"The more I go to know her, the more fascinated I became with her story," Nash said. "I just got very involved in her story and with her project."

That project is 100 Mothers Literacy Program, which Muhibi started last year to teach young mothers in her village to read and write in the native language, Dari.

Born in Kabul, Muhibi moved with her family back to their native village at the age of 7 as civil war erupted in the city.

After a year in the rustic village with no electricity, the family moved to the city of Baghlan to pursue learning opportunities for the eight children.

"My dad is a very big fan of educating his children because he never had an education himself," she explained.

But as the Taliban followed them to the city, the family kept moving, fleeing to villages and hiding in the mountains before eventually escaping to Pakistan, where they lived as refugees for years before returning to Kabul in 2002.

With renewed pressure to wed her cousin, Muhibi, then 16, decided to pursue a lifelong dream -- studying abroad.

"But that was something almost impossible for a girl," she said. "People used to laugh at me and ask, 'Why would you even think of going abroad?'"

In 2003, Lester B. Pearson United World College awarded Rahila a scholarship to finish high school in Canada. She was one of five selected from a pool of 200 candidates in Afghanistan. She went on to Methodist, and this month she will graduate with a bachelor of arts degree in political science and international studies.

In addition to the degree, she has earned a wealth of experience in the field she hopes to pursue.

In 2007, after running a youth summer camp in Afghanistan with a grant from the college, Muhibi saw that progress could be made.

"When I went home, I figured out that if my mother was more literate and had a position with a company, my brothers would have grown much differently," she said, noting that her mother was married at 11 and had her first child at 13.

"They would have a much different image of women in their lives."

There, in a country where the literacy rate is 14 percent, the idea for the 100 Mothers program was born.

Muhibi asked Nash to help and the two organized a fundraiser in Richmond. At the end of the dinner, during which Muhibi presented her story and her idea, they had raised $8,000 -- enough to launch the program.

"The thing about Rahila that has been so interesting has been the reaction from the folks that have met her," Nash said. "There just seems to be this level of inspiration. It's been fun for me to watch her career and kind of coach her."

Muhibi has since been able to raise $12,000 so far, graduating her first class of 105 mothers in March. Her second class is in session now.

She said the program opens doors for the women -- mostly mothers between the ages of 18 and 25 who were married at 15 or 16 -- to pursue careers and help themselves and their children.

"Being able to read and write will offer a lot of opportunities for them to be maybe a nurse assistant or a female elementary teacher," she said.

The three-month sessions are now being led by Muhibi's brother and taught by graduates of the village school.

On Tuesday, Nash continued her mentorship, bringing Muhibi to meetings as she organized the launch of a new PartnerMD office.

"She mentioned she hadn't seen women run big companies -- or small companies," Nash said.

"Or even their own life," added Muhibi with a laugh.

It's training that she hopes will pay off in the not-so-distant future.

Following graduation, Muhibi hopes to find work at a nonprofit while raising funds to sustain her own program. Eventually, she hopes to grow it and establish her own nonprofit to help improve conditions in Afghanistan.

She said her goal was to expand possibilities for girls like her in any way she can.

"Right now, there are not a lot of options," she said. "This will provide basic skills for these other women to move forward."

Contact Wesley P. Hester at (804) 649-6976 or .