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First Afghan Female on Slow Flight Around the World
Twenty-nine-year-old Afghan Female, Shaesta Waiz began her solo flight around the world and wants to become the first woman to complete a solo flight around the world, breaking gender barriers in aviation at time when women are not pilots in Afghanistan.
Weather permitting, Waiz will stop in 18 countries across five continents to complete the over 40,000 kilometre journey. She started the trip in Florida on Saturday.
Growing up, she started having an interest in aviation and started pursuing something that has never been done before. She became the first certified civilian female pilot from Afghanistan.
Shaesta Waiz said, “every time I open the door to an aircraft, I ask myself, ‘How did a girl with my background become so lucky?’ The truth is, anyone can be me.”
She also became the first person in her family to get a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University. “I believed my future consisted of getting married at a young age and starting a big family. It wasn’t until I found aviation that I started thinking about having a career and going to college.”
Waiz hopes to inspire a new generation of young women to consider careers in male-dominated technical fields like aviation and raise money for a scholarship. She hopes to meet with as many youngsters as possible along her route.
“When I see the young kids … they are shocked to see the airplane and touch it,” she said. “When they actually feel something and see something. That’s when they get excited.”
Waiz’s family fled to Richmond, Calif., at the height of the Soviet-Afghan war in 1987. She and her five sisters attended school in an underprivileged district, where she remembers not being able to finish her first novel until the tenth grade.
“I was a very shy girl. I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself,” she said. “I didn’t speak English. I grew up speaking Farsi and Pachtun at home.”
Her first flight at age 18 was terrifying, she recalls. But once she felt the thrust kick in and the wheels leave the tarmac, she says she knew her future was in the skies.
“A lot of people in aviation have this moment when they discover it. It’s so magical. It’s amazing,” she said.
Waiz says she gets her inspiration from Ohio native Jerrie Mock, who became the first woman in 1964 to complete a solo flight around the world. Waiz says Mock broke gender barriers in aviation at a time when few women were pilots.
The European Union announced Tuesday it has made available 400,000 euros (over 30 million afghani) in response to widespread flooding in the north of Afghanistan in the past few weeks.
This humanitarian aid will provide immediate emergency assistance to beneficiaries in the regions of Baghlan, Badakhshan, and Takhar, the EU said in a statement.
The assistance will be delivered by EU humanitarian partners ACTED and DACAAR. It will include an emergency multi-sectoral response through cash assistance as well as access to clean water, emergency sanitation and hygiene supplies, the statement read.
The EU mentioned that it has been funding humanitarian operations in Afghanistan since 1994, providing close to 1.8 billion euros ($1.9 billion) in funding.
Last year alone, the EU mobilised 159 million euros ($172 million) in humanitarian funding.
In addition, since 2021 the EU has organised a Humanitarian Air Bridge to Afghanistan, with 35 flights so far that have carried over 1,600 tonnes of aid.
Turkish Airlines will resume its flights to Afghanistan tomorrow (Tuesday), officials said on Monday.
The Ministry of Transport said that a Turkish Airlines plane will land in Kabul airport on Tuesday.
“Tomorrow, Turkish Airlines will resume its flights to Kabul International Airport. There will be four flights between Kabul and Istanbul per week. This is good news for Afghan travelers. For those Afghans who travel to European countries, they can move easily through Turkey,” said Imamuddin Ahmadi, the spokesman of the Ministry of Transport.
However, the Chamber of Commerce and Investment emphasized that visas should be provided to businessmen and citizens of the country, otherwise companies will benefit the most, not Afghan citizens and businessmen.
“Not a single passenger is allowed, the reason is that they do not issue visas. If the Turks don’t start issuing visas, or the Arabs don’t issue visas, the plane will come for the cargo and there will be little movement of people,” said Khanjan Alokozay, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Investment.
In a meeting with Rosemary DiCarlo, Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, the Deputy Prime Minister said the Islamic Emirate will participate in the third Doha meeting if its “position” is accepted.
He said that Afghanistan is under the complete control of the Islamic Emirate and that the country “has an Emir” and the government is “obeyed”.
According to a statement issued by Mawlavi Abdul Kabir’s office, the deputy prime minister told DiCarlo: “The previous meeting in Doha was incomplete due to some shortcomings of its organizers, and the position of the Islamic Emirate should be accepted in the next meeting so that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate will participate in it.”
The Secretary General of the United Nations once expressed regret for the Islamic Emirate’s non-participation in the Doha meeting, but at the same time said that accepting the demands of the Islamic Emirate is equivalent to its recognition.
Meanwhile, the Islamic Emirate is asking the United Nations and other countries to recognize them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Kabir said that the Islamic Emirate has fulfilled all its obligations and “rules over the entire geography of Afghanistan… There is a central government in all of Afghanistan that has an emir and is obeyed.”
The United Nations is expected to hold the third Doha meeting with the participation of special representatives of countries for Afghanistan, but it has not set a date for it yet.
The Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs of the United Nations meanwhile visited Kabul this week and invited the Islamic Emirate’s officials to participate in the Doha meeting.
According to the deputy prime minister’s office, DiCarlo informed Kabir about the Doha meeting and said that “the Islamic Emirate’s conditions for participating in this meeting are not difficult.”
She expressed hope that a delegation of the Islamic Emirate will participate.
She said that representatives of a number of international organizations and countries have been invited to the Doha meeting, including the World Bank.
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