About Afghan Rural Schools
Dr. Abdul Qayum Safi was born in Kunar, Afghanistan. He attended a boarding high school in Kabul before earning his undergraduate degree from the American University in Beirut, and a doctorate from Teachers College, Columbia University in New York. Dr. Safi is fluent in English, Dari, Pashto, and Arabic, and is now retired in South Florida. He is president of Afghan Rural Schools and author of One Life: An Afghan Remembers.
No matter where you go, you will always come back to the children of your ancestors. — Pashto saying
During his childhood, there was only one elementary school for boys in the district, and none for girls or for high school. Of the 35 children in his class, he was the only one who continued his education past that point. A government scholarship sent him to a boarding school in Kabul, then to Beirut for his bachelor's degree, and later to the United States for graduate study.
Dr. Safi believes no child's potential should be limited by growing up in a rural village, and no child should have to take the path he did just to get an education.
One Life: An Afghan Remembers
The eldest of ten children, Dr. Safi grew up with very little in a traditional, conservative society. After his family was displaced from Pech by war, he rebuilt his path forward through a series of scholarships earned through academic excellence — first to a boarding school in Kabul, then to Lebanon, then to the United States, where he earned a doctorate from an Ivy League university.
All proceeds from the book go to Afghan Rural Schools, supporting a girls' high school in Khas Kunar.