Fahima Gaheez
Director of Afghan Women's Fund (AWF)

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Fahima Gaheez grew up in Afghanistan and from an early age, she was involved with the early women’s rights movement in that country. A chemist by training, she chose to become involved with educational programs for women. Although she was not formally affiliated with any women’s organizations for many years following her departure from Afghanistan, she remained a fervent and close supporter of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), as well as Humanitarian Aid to Women and Children of Afghanistan (HAWCA).

She has arranged for the shipment of medical and other supplies to Afghanistan and has been actively involved in consciousness-raising and fundraising for many years. She has addressed the United Nations, has traveled widely to speak at conferences at universities and religious organizations, and has appeared on many national and international television and radio stations, including BBC and NPR. She has been featured in such publications as the Baltimore Sun and the Washington Post. She is the  director of Afghan Women’s Fund. She also is an honorary member of Afghanistan Organization for Human Rights and Environmental Protection.

In February 2002, she traveled to refuge camps in Pakistan and to Afghanistan to work on women's rights and education. While there, she co-founded the Humanitarian Organization for Orphans and Widows of Afghanistan (HOOWA) in Kabul.

She has served as a consultant for two books dealing with Afghan women—WOMEN FOR AFGHAN WOMEN: SHATTERING MYTHS AND RECLAIMING THE FUTURE, edited by Sunita Mehta and BEHIND THE BURQA, by Batya Swift Yasgur, which is the memoir of two Afghan sisters.

 

Awards

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  • Fahima is the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award “for Extraordinary Contribution to Peace and Justice” awarded by the Ann Arundel Peace Action Organization in 2002.

  • In Dec 2003 she was awarded the “Human Right Community Award” by the UN Association of the National Capital Area”.

  • In September 2004 she received” Most outstanding volunteer” award from Ann Arundel County.

  • In April 2005, she received the Salem Award for Human Rights and Social Justice.

  • In 2007 she received the Soroptmists award.

  • In Dec 2009 She received the life time achievement ward from Washington Peace Center.

  • In 2010 she received an honorary Doctor of Laws from Montclair University

Since 2002. Fahima has visited Afghanistan to open new schools for girls and literacy classes for women, create income-generating projects for widows to help them become self-sufficient, distribute warm clothing and school supplies to refugees and guide numerous other humanitarian and educational projects like digging wells for clean drinking water and irrigation, building schools and clinics, giving goats and chickens to the widows and helping with their health issues by building clinics and providing medical supplies.