Cork group aim to save ‘Aisling’ from Taliban to fulfill dentist dream

A CORK-BASED group fundraising to help a young Afghan woman “on the radar of the Taliban” to start a new life in Ireland hopes to welcome her into the country by the end of January.

Fáilte Aisling is a Community Sponsorship Group working on behalf of a 24-year-old Afghan woman, whom the group has called ‘Aisling’ as it cannot use her real name due to concerns for her safety under the current Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

Community Sponsorship is a Government initiative enabling a group to welcome refugees into a local area and support them as they rebuild their lives.

Included in the criteria of the programme is a stipulation that the support group must raise €10,000, which is used to cover all expenses when the refugee first arrives in Ireland.

Fáilte Aisling said Aisling has been approved under the Irish Refugee Protection Programme (IRPP) to move to Ireland and that accommodation is already in place for her.

One person involved in the group is Alan Falsey, who told The Echo he first heard of Aisling’s story from perhaps an unusual source, his dentist.

Mr Falsey, who is originally from Cork, had been working in various places across the Middle East, including Afghanistan, for over a decade.

Returning home to Leeside during covid, he found himself in need of a dentist.

“During the course of the treatment, we were just talking or whatever and I said I’d been in Afghanistan, and it turned out that the dentist, her name is Manizha [Khan], she was from Afghanistan and she had come to Ireland and she had been the Dean of Dentistry in the university in a city called Herat,” Mr Falsey told The Echo.

Ms Khan later told him the story of a student she had previously taught at Herat University — ‘Aisling’.

Before the Taliban’s takeover, Aisling had access to primary, secondary and third level education.

From a young age, it was Aisling’s dream to become a dentist, and she completed five years of her dental degree in Herat University, excelling in all her studies and activities.

LIFE CHANGED

However, in 2021 as soon as the Taliban regained power, Aisling’s world, along with the lives of so many others in her home country, changed for the worst.

Life in Afghanistan became particularly perilous for Aisling as she challenged the status quo.

“She came onto the radar of [the] Taliban because of her ‘lack of compliance’, both by starting her book club and continued activism to protest against the closing of education to girls and to reopen access to education to them,” Fáilte Aisling explained on its GoFundMe page.

Aisling was also in danger of getting forcefully married to one of the local Taliban leaders.

“At that stage, we decided that we’d apply to the Refugee Council and see could we get her refugee status,” Mr Falsey explained.

“Manizha was able to put this really good group together of academics, childcare workers and health workers and things like that, and between us we formed a group.

“We applied to the Refugee Council in Cork, they approved the group’s start up, then we put the GoFundMe together, we went out to the community of dentists, the academics in UCC, and that was it.

“In late December then, the pressure really started mounting in Afghanistan … so what [Aisling] did is she left Afghanistan and went over the border then into Iran.”

Since the launch of the fundraiser over a month ago, more than €10,000 has been raised.

“[The €10k] triggers the Government to take over, the flights will be booked,” Mr Falsey said.

He said the group is desperately hoping to have Aisling on a flight to Ireland this month.

And although it will take some time for Aisling to adapt to her new life, he said that she will not be found wanting in terms of support from the group.

Mr Falsey described Aisling as an “incredibly bright, sharp and determined” young woman who has all the potential to make a “serious contribution to Cork and Ireland in the future”.

To donate to the fundraiser, see GoFundMe.