A schoolgirl from Hove told a United Nations conference how she and her family fled the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Asal Latifi, a year 11 student at Hove Park School, also spoke about her experience as a refugee, having arrived in Brighton just four years ago.
Hove Park School said that on Monday (16 May) Asal “had the honour of being one of the chosen speakers to deliver a speech to the United Nations, in Geneva, as part of an international conference”.
The conference was focused on inspiring women and a peaceful and sustainable future.
The school said: “Asal was chosen as a speaker partly due to the work of her mother, Angela Ghayour, who has received international recognition for her work in setting up an online school, @HeratSchool.
“(It) helps young women in Afghanistan continue to receive an education despite the oppressive and deadly presence of the Taliban.
“The school has been a huge success and means that teachers from all across the world are contributing to the education of girls in Afghanistan.
“Asal’s powerful speech details her experience as a refugee, explaining how her family had to escape her hometown of Herat in Afghanistan and flee on foot from the brutality of the Taliban, making the dangerous journey over mountain ranges into Iran and then on to Europe, from Greece to Italy and finally settling in the Netherlands.
“Asal’s family then moved to Brighton in 2018 and she joined our school in year 8.
“Not only does her speech encompass her dramatic experience as refugee but it also details her passion to continue to help her ‘sisters’ in Afghanistan – to fight for their right to freedom of expression, for their right to an education, like she has received in the UK, and their right to be women, who make their own choices about their own lives, without the murderous threat of the Taliban.
“Asal is an inspiring student and we are all incredibly proud of her achievements.”
