International Women's Day Celebration with Dr. Homeira Qaderi

This spring, we are excited to announce that we are partnering with the Collective for Refugee and Immigrant Women’s Wellbeing (CRIW) and other Yale Offices for a very special event to commemorate International Women’s Day on Friday, March 8! 

The evening will feature a talk with Dr. Homeira Qaderi, an award-winning Afghan writer, scholar of Persian literature, and courageous advocate for women’s rights and the empowerment of Afghan civil society. Dr. Qaderi is currently at Yale as a visiting scholar with the MacMillan Center, and we are thrilled to host her for a talk and discussion about her award-winning book, “Dancing in the Mosque; An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son”. The evening will conclude with further conversation over a reception with delicious food prepared by local refugee and immigrant women chefs.

During the event, we will also be raffling off copies of the book, and the lucky winners will have the opportunity to get it signed during the reception by Dr. Qaderi. 

Speaker Bio:
Dr. Qaderi is an award-winning Afghan writer, scholar of Persian literature and courageous advocate for women’s rights and the empowerment of Afghan civil society. Born in Kabul, Qaderi received her Ph.D. in Persian literature from Jawaharlal Nehru University, in India and is the author of seven books.  Before leaving Afghanistan, Dr. Qaderi taught at several universities in Kabul, and worked in two different Afghan government administrations. Earlier she served as a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Social and Labor Affairs in 2013, and more recently as a Senior Advisor to the Minister of Education. Homeira Qaderi was also Editor-in-Chief of the popular newspaper, The Madaniyat Daily.  As a lifelong activist and a staunch defender of women's rights, Homeira was awarded the Malalai Medal of Honor—Afghanistan’s highest civilian honor—for exceptional bravery by the President of Afghanistan. 
After the fall of Kabul, Homeira Qaderi fled Afghanistan and became a fellow at Harvard University Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. Presently Dr. Qaderi is a Writer in Residence at Yale University.

Moderator Bio:
Tabitha Sookdeo is a formerly undocumented immigrant originally from Guyana in South America, who grew up in Sint Maarten in the Dutch Caribbean. Tabitha completed her undergraduate studies in
social and environmental justice from Trevecca Nazarene University, where her scholarship focused on the intersection between climate change and migration. Tabitha has worked in the immigration field for over a decade, from community organizing to public interest lobbying and fundraising: aiding advocacy efforts for a tuition equality bill giving in-state tuition privileges to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients; and raising hundreds of thousands of scholarship dollars for undocumented university students in Nashville, Tennessee. In addition, Tabitha has organized human rights coalitions for migrant farmworkers facing modern-day slavery in Immokalee, Florida.

This event is being co-sponsored by Belonging at Yale, the Collective for Refugee and Immigrant Women’s Wellbeing (CRIW), Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services (IRIS), Yale’s Global Division, Yale MacMillan Center, Yale’s McDougal Center for Graduate Student Life, Yale’s Office for Postdoctoral Affairs, Yale's Office of International Students & Scholars, and Yale's Working Women's Network. 

Office of International Students & Scholars | Website | View More Events
Co-hosted with: McDougal Center, The MacMillan Center—News & Events, Office for Postdoctoral Affairs, Working Women's Network

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