An inaugural Board Chair, a community in crisis, and a historic opportunity.

Dear Friends & Partners, 

With both feet now in a new year, we have been reflecting on the critical work we have done around the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan and the unprecedented surge of Afghan refugees in need of resettlement. With the trust and collaboration of our community and allied organizations, AAF has been able to lead our community through an incredibly difficult period. We have been able to make a significant impact in how our community is viewed and certainly in the way in which it is heard. We come to you now with reflections and commitments for the year ahead. 

AAF came into existence a year ago, based on a desire for our community to have principled advocacy on behalf of our community and increased civic engagement. In that spirit, the AAF Board of Directors is pleased to announce the appointment of Joseph M. Azam as inaugural Board Chair. Joseph is a recognized leading attorney in global anti-corruption work, a trusted policy advisor, and a passionate community organizer. We look forward to his strategic stewardship at this critical juncture in our community's history and AAF's growth.  Joseph’s leadership and passion will ensure that AAF works strategically to serve Afghan communities across the nation in a changing landscape with new challenges and opportunities in the coming years. 

We could not have imagined what the year would demand of us. Scenes of heart-wrenching suffering, loss, and destruction in Afghanistan have challenged our collective conscience. Like many of you, our Board members have been impacted by the crisis that came on top of decades of conflict in Afghanistan. As a collective, we have felt the pain of our community and the weight of this moment.

But we have also felt a burst of hope in seeing the response from our Afghan-American community, which has come together, stood firm on principle, and jumped headfirst into the work of helping those directly impacted by the crisis in Afghanistan. For its part, AAF has sought to create and hold space for all of those who do this critical work. We have built strong coalitions and spotlighted community experts with meaningful and strategic solutions.  We have prioritized an Afghan-American narrative that is clear and reflective of the myriad of experiences and perspectives within our community. We have convened stakeholders and fiercely advocated to break the decades-long cycle of decisions being made about and for Afghans and Afghan-Americans without our input or insights. 

From the onset of the Afghanistan crisis in August, AAF recognized that high-level, Afghan-American led, advocacy would need to be a priority. We regularly led engagements with the White House, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Health and Human Services, and other governmental agencies to ensure Afghan-American voices were involved in crafting the response to the crisis in Afghanistan and the resulting resettlement challenges in the United States. 

From being the first organization to provide on-demand cultural competency training to those interacting with newly arrived Afghans, to ensuring that mental health services were made available to those in need, to leading efforts to secure employment opportunities to every Afghan resettling in the United States, we have not only been in policy and process discussions, we have often found a way to lead them. This has been particularly the case in our work with the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) to support the hundreds of unaccompanied children who have arrived from Afghanistan. Our ability to convene stakeholders, set agendas, and create accountability, we believe, has been critical in the Afghan evacuation and resettlement process. 

We have also worked tirelessly to build alliances and coalitions with those committed to lifting Afghan voices and bringing solutions to bear on the many challenges facing Afghans in Afghanistan and those arriving in the United States. From partnering with veterans groups to advocating for evacuations of women’s rights activists and human rights defenders, to collaborating with institutions like UCLA, Human Rights First, Women for Afghan Women (WAW), Welcome.Us and a host of other groups to host discussions on Afghan and Afghanistan aimed at educating policymakers and the American public while advocating for the interests of Afghan-Americans.

Most importantly to us, we have become a trusted partner and ally to many Afghan-American groups who are working across the country on resettlement and policy advocacy. We have taken a deep interest in enabling and supporting their work on the frontlines and hope to continue to do our part to ensure that their work is centered and supported.  

As important as the work of this past year has been, in the months ahead we will face even greater challenges. From refugee resettlement to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, these steep needs demand our collective attention. We will be present when and where our advocacy can be most impactful, like the Virginia Refugee Advocacy Day. We will keep our message consistent and continue to uplift voices of our community leaders across the country. We will stand up for our most vulnerable, the unaccompanied children. 

And we ask you to stand with us, to continue to track our work, and consider empowering us with your tax-deductible contribution so we can continue to center Afghan voices, convene critical conversations, and build bridges and influence where it matters most. We cannot do this without you. May the new year bring you and yours healing, light, and empowerment.