by Georgann Yara, working for ASU News
Even in the thick of upheaval, impending tyranny and indefinite uncertainty, Rangina Hamidi was resolute: She would stay in Afghanistan.
Hamidi was proud of her spotless record as the first woman in 30 years to hold the position of minister of education in her homeland. She embraced her calling to advocate for the rights of girls and women.
Like her fellow Afghans, she was conflicted.
“I cried. I was sad. I was mad. I was in chaos, like everybody else,” Hamidi vividly recalls of her thoughts on that August day when her country fell. “But I’m not going to leave. I have nothing to be ashamed of.”
In the days that followed, Hamidi saw horrific videos shared via social media. One of them showed a young girl in a village forcibly taken from her parents by men bearing weapons. They planned to marry her off. The girl looked to be about the same age as Hamidi’s daughter Zara, 12.
The harsh reality washed over. Fighting for all future generations of Afghan women was her mission. But so was Zara’s well-being.
Any conflicted feelings that remained gave way to the mother in her.
“I looked at Zara and imagined a future without community and education. I had always criticized people who always leave Afghanistan and harsh moments of life. As unprincipled as it may be, as a mother, I had to become selfish. I knew at that moment, I cannot take this chance,” Hamidi says. “Zara was my reason for staying. And my reason for leaving.”
Within 24 hours from that moment, Hamidi, her husband, Abdullah, and Zara were on a military plane departing from the Kabul Airport en route to the U.S.
All three are American citizens with American passports so their departure was not as harrowing as most. Still, that didn’t make the journey easy. There was a chairless ride on the floor of a military cargo plane; a 12-hour stay in a stifling waiting room at the airport in Doha, Qatar; weary flights to Germany, and ultimately D.C.; plus countless hours of waiting in between.
Hamidi settled with her sister in Virginia — where their family immigrated when they were children, and where she earned her bachelor's degree with a double major in religious studies and gender studies from the University of Virginia — when she got the call to join ASU’s Thunderbird School of Global Management.
Within weeks, Hamidi was offered, and she accepted, a new position as a professor of practice with the Thunderbird. The new job and new environment gave her the fresh start she craved and needed.
The Kandahar native admits she’s not crazy about heat and has heard the tales of Arizona summers. But the idea of being in Washington, D.C. was less appealing, especially considering the role politics played in her homeland’s current state. The timing was ideal.
“I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to be here and to share my knowledge. I hope to make myself available to the entire ASU community,” Hamidi says, speaking from the downtown Phoenix apartment she shares with her family of three. “Also, I’m a workaholic and having this opportunity to serve an educational institution with my knowledge and title I’ve been given is an honor for me. Thunderbird has literally a global presence and that kind of reach is hard to find. It is indeed a blessing and a true gem and asset within the community.”
But the connection between Hamidi and Thunderbird dates back long before she joined the faculty last fall. In fact, the relationship pre-dates the school joining ASU.
A special 16-year Thunderbird relationship
In 2005, Hamidi was one of 15 Afghan women in the first cohort of Project Artemis, a Thunderbird for Good-led program that provides business training to aspiring women entrepreneurs in emerging and underserved markets around the globe.
When Hamidi returned to Afghanistan, she took what she learned with her. It culminated in the groundbreaking female-driven enterprise Kandahar Treasure.
Kandahar Treasure runs on the talents of hundreds of women skilled in the art of Khamak, embroidery based on a complicated mathematical equation that yields a stunning geometric pattern. Hamidi provided the materials and asked them to make scarves, table runners and other accessories or textiles. If the items were of quality, they were marketed locally and internationally with artists getting paid for their wares.
Suddenly, these women had money to send their girls to school, and pay for uniforms and books that only boys were entitled to. The income also meant more food on the table and goods for their families.
Kandahar Treasure was registered as the first female-owned business in the city. It still operates today under the rule of the Taliban, after the women convinced the new government that it would not be a threat and is a positive endeavor.
“It is critically important for women to earn a living in a dignified manner,” Hamidi says. “That’s the beauty of creating a business that can sustain itself, even in the midst of chaos.”
She credited the quality of education she received from Thunderbird for being able to make this happen adding, “It helped me turn that dream into a reality.”
Project Artemis was how Thunderbird for Good Executive Director Kellie Kreiser met Hamidi 16 years ago. They became friends, with Thunderbird supporting Hamidi’s efforts, including purchasing Kandahar Treasure pieces as gifts for donors and other key partners.
“She was always passionate about helping women and girls, but she realized what a really powerful tool business could be,” Kreiser says.
So the Thunderbrid tie was already there. With Hamidi weighing her options and needing to start from scratch, several small conversions culminated in a big one with Thunderbird Dean Sanjeev Khagram.
‘A great place for her to be’
When the Afghan government fell, Khagram and his colleagues reached out to all prospective students and alumni, including Hamidi.
“I’m a refugee myself so this is a very personal issue for me,” says Khagram, a native of Uganda whose family was expelled in the early ‘70s under the reign of military dictator Idi Amin. “We wanted to do everything we could not only for Rangina, but for every refugee.”
A widespread effort spanning executive leadership teams and committees at Thunderbird and ASU examined response options. Bringing Hamidi on board as a professor of practice arose from those meetings.
Khagram first connected with Hamidi before she was appointed minister of education, when Thunderbird was collaborating to launch a Center of Excellence in Kabul. The pandemic brought those plans to a halt.
Hamidi joining his faculty now was a logical step. Khagram had multiple conversations with Hamidi, and Thunderbird swiftly organized her family’s transition to Phoenix.
“With someone of her stature and her connection, we specifically focused on how we could be supportive. I felt if she had to leave, a great place for her to be would be with us,” Khagram said.
In just a few short months, Khagram has already seen Hamidi’s impact through leadership events locally and globally via Zoom. Opinion pieces that share her knowledge, experience and passion are inspiring. Hamidi’s work will be the centerpiece of the new Global Women’s Leadership Center that is due to launch later this year.
“She’s an incredibly powerful woman and an incredibly dedicated and passionate person, and she was ready to engage,” Khagram says. “Her role here is as a model of global leadership.”
Pursuing a future with choices
Hamidi’s life has sent her around the globe.
First, political unrest forced her family to flee Afghanistan when she was 5 in the wake of the Soviet Union invasion and communist rule. They settled in Pakistan living in a community of fellow Afghan refugees.
Hamidi has fond memories of her time there. Her father, Ghulam Haider Hamidi, prized education and defied laws by sending his two daughters to a private school.
One day, he received a warning to keep Hamidi and her sister home. There was a plan to deface them by throwing acid in their face — a practice that was carried out a few months prior on the daughters of her father’s best friend.
This led to the family relocating to Virginia in 1988, where Hamidi found herself a refugee again.
“My father wanted his daughters to have a different future, a future where we could make the choice as individuals,” Hamidi says. “I was blessed to have the parents that I did and to have the opportunity to come to a place like the U.S. where I could get my education.”
She earned her college degree and planned to stay in the United States. Then 9/11 happened.
Hamidi says she felt a sense of responsibility to go back to Afghanistan and help develop her homeland. Her involvement with, and spearheading of, social projects that focused on the advancement of women made her an activist and hero. Her background that united traditional Afghan culture with the education and progressive stances of the West uniquely empowered Hamidi.
Her plan to stay just a year or two grew into 18. She met and married Abdullah and started a family.
In 2011, her father died while serving as mayor of Khandahar, Afghanistan, when he was the lone target of a suicide bomber. After a few months in the U.S. to heal from the tragedy, Hamidi returned to Afghanistan in 2014, intending to stay for good.
“I realized if my father was alive, he wouldn’t want me to give up on my country,” she says.
But she knows he, as a devoted parent, would understand her decision. She plans to return one day when it’s safe.
Now settled in her new home and career, Hamidi couldn’t be happier to have landed in this spot — literally and figuratively.
“What Thunderbird is doing with its mission to connect with the globe and to have an open conversation with the world about each other’s realities, fears, finances and opportunities, I am proud to be part of that,” Hamidi says. “And whatever step comes next, I’ll happily take it.”
Two pieces of small luggage and a handbag were the only personal belongings Hamidi’s family were able to escape with. They were forced to temporarily surrender them, and told they would get them back when they landed in the U.S. However, upon arrival in Washington, D.C., those bags were lost. One was Zara’s, which she filled with small toys and mementos of the only life she had known that would provide comfort and familiarity as she moved into a strange new land that she was to call home.
It also held a well-kept diary of Zara’s recollections and observations during her last week in Kabul. Hamidi doesn’t care about the other one that held extra clothes. Those can be replaced. She is focused on this one
As she talks about hoping to be reunited with that bag, it’s clear the contents represent more than a child’s toys or words on paper. It’s a rendering of all she left behind and her aspirations for her homeland’s future.
“I also lost my country. I lost my people. So in the scheme of things, a small piece of luggage is not that important,” Hamidi says. She pauses, looks down and takes a breath. “But at the same time, it carries with it the memories of a child who wrote about her experiences. So that’s the only piece I’m clinging on to and hoping to get back.”
Rangina Hamidi arrived in Phoenix on Sept. 13, 2020. Thunderbird Dean Sanjeev Khagram, Thunderbird for Good Executive Director Kellie Kreiser, alumni engagement and fundraising team member Yagana Hafed and a number of Thunderbird alumni were instrumental in her and her family's move to Phoenix and securing her faculty position. Hamidi is currently a professor of practice at the Thunderbird School of Global Management and is pursuing her master’s degree on a full scholarship. The enterprise Hamidi started continues to flourish and can be found at kandahartreasure.com.
Student and scholar stories