BONUS #1 - Hope for Afghanistan

As refugees living in the US, Nazifa and her sister founded a non-profit organization called HOPE for Afghanistan, which funded education for girls and women in their home country. But when the Taliban took power in 2021, everything they had been working on collapsed overnight. The students and teachers they were supporting risked death if they tried to continue their quest for education. It seemed as though their efforts had reached a dead end, but Nazifa and her sister have found a way to quietly keep HOPE for Afghanistan going. This is the story behind that effort.

For more on Hope4Afghanistan, go to hope4afghanistan.org.

For more information, including pictures, visit us at kslpodcasts.com.

Stranger Becomes Neighbor is a production of KSL Podcasts.

We saw it on the news. The images still haunt us.

Two years ago this month, a desperate sea of humanity rushed the Kabul airport as the American military started mass evacuations in Afghanistan. Many were left behind to face the Taliban, while some escaped to countries like Iran and Pakistan. 

For over 80,000 refugees, America is now home. Their lives continue, but our news feeds have moved on, blasting stories about today’s crisis-du-jour. Now these evacuees live beside us, trying to make ends meet, find housing, gain acceptance, adapt to a new culture, and become valued members of our communities.

In Stranger Becomes Neighbor, we follow them. And we meet the Americans who have chosen to help their new neighbors. Like the stay-at-home mom who convinces a neighbor to rent out their basement to a pregnant Afghan woman, then finds herself helping to deliver the baby. Like a young widow who served in a secret pro-American unit of the Afghan military and now struggles to find childcare so she can work at Walmart.

Their stories – and the heartbreaking stories of loved ones left behind – inspire us to discover the hope and triumph of the human spirit.

What can one person do to help a stranger? 

We find out on a new podcast from KSL Podcasts, the people who brought you Cold and The Letter.

Coming soon, Stranger Becomes Neighbor