Advocacy and Public Education — Helena Zeweri, PhD

As one of the founding members of the Afghan American interdisciplinary collective, the Afghan American Artists and Writers Association (AAAWA), I believe in the bridging the worlds of academia and advocacy. AAAWA is a collective that organizes community exhibitions, creative workshops, and public commentaries in order to showcase pivotal diasporic works to a broad audience. Based in North America, AAAWA aims to amplify work that critically analyzes discourse on Afghanistan in the U.S. mainstream, where Afghan voices are routinely ignored or reduced to cultural tropes. Through its forums, AAAWA illuminates a multiplicity of issues ranging from hybrid identities to gender and sexuality to the multigenerational impacts of war, including the ongoing ramifications of U.S. imperialism and capitalism. We view Afghan diasporic voices as connected through not only our ancestral ties, but also through a shared vision for social justice for marginalized communities globally. AAAWA members are Afghans, Muslims, and/or queer Americans with intersectional identities.

How Culture Matters: Tools for Social Justice Through Empowerment

Workshop, Afghan American Conference, New York University, 2018.

Outlets for Creative Expression

Workshop, Afghan American Conference, UC Irvine, 2019.

Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later

Exhibit, ReflectSpace, Glendale Public Library, CA, 2019. Art by Laimah Osman.

Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later

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Some examples of initiatives/events I have recently been a part of organizing with AAAWA members include:

Aug. 2022, Panel Discussion co-organized Project ANAR and Afghans for a Better Tomorrow: Afghan Experiences with Humanitarian Parole: One Year Later

June 2021, Presentation with Gazelle Samizay: The Multiple Lives of the Afghan Girl, Society for Photographic Education Conference

Oct. 2020, Panel Discussion co-organized with Seelai Karzai and Wazhmah Osman: Reimagining Queer Futures: Afghans and Art in the Diaspora

July 2020, Panel Discussion co-organized with Arash Azizzada: Beyond Refuge: Migrants Resist Detention

Nov. 2019-Jan.2020, Multimedia Exhibit in Glendale, CA co-organized with Gazelle Samizay, Fragmented Futures: Afghanistan 100 Years Later

June 2019, Workshop co-led with Gazelle Samizay: Outlets for Creative Expression, Afghan American Conference

June 2018, Workshop co-led with Gazelle Samizay: How Culture Matters: Tools for Social Justice through Self-Empowerment, Afghan American Conference

Ongoing: Anti-Racism Reading Groups with AAAWA members

Oct. 2015, 3 Night Series on Afghan diasporic art and writing, co-organized with Sahar Muradi, Wazhmah Osman, and Zarin Hamid, Distant Attachments: Unsettling Contemporary Afghan Diasporic Art

Oct. 2011, Multimedia Exhibit in New York, co-organized with Sahar Muradi, Zohra Saed, and Wazhmah Osman, Afghan Americans 10 Years Later