More than 400 schoolgirls, family and teachers rescued from Afghanistan by small coalition

Selendy & Gay co-managing partner Jennifer Selendy (fourth from left) with the Behroozian family,: after safely landing in Saskatoon, Canada. Courtesy photo.

“I could not live with myself if I did not act to help women and girls facing such extreme emotional and physical abuse and systemic injustice,” Jennifer Selendy, Managing partner Selendy & Gay.

In a recent interview with Law360 Access to Justice, Selendy & Gay co-founder and managing partner Jennifer Selendy said it was her own life experiences that led her to join a coalition to help more than 500 Afghans, many of whom had been female students at a Kabul high school, leave Afghanistan.

After the U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan in August and the Taliban retook control of the country, Selendy became involved in helping female students, family members and teachers associated with Marefat High School in Kabul, https://marefat.edu.af/en/, evacuate the country through Tufts University's Institute of Global Leadership, https://www.tuftsgloballeadership.org/.

Selendy, a Tufts alumna and vice chair of IGL's board, said that Abuzar Royesh, a young Afghan entrepreneur who attended Tufts for undergraduate studies, reached out to the board in August about assisting students and community members of the high school that was founded by his father.

She said that she chose to participate in the project because of her own personal experiences as a woman, including times she felt implicitly and explicitly threatened with violence or dismissed and disrespected because of her gender.

"Even though my experiences are not comparable to those of Hazara women living under the rule of the Taliban, they are seared into my mind as some of the most infuriating and emotionally painful experiences of my life. I could not live with myself if I did not act to help women and girls facing such extreme emotional and physical abuse and systemic injustice."

Many of the Marefat High School girls' lives would have been in danger if they had remained in Afghanistan under control of the Taliban, Selendy said. They are of the Hazara ethnic minority, which has historically been oppressed by the Taliban, and they engaged in activities like singing, athletics and attending school with boys that are prohibited by the Islamic fundamentalist group.

Selendy worked with seven people, including Royesh, to rescue more than 500 people, including more than 400 schoolgirls, their family members and teachers, from October through November, according to the Thirty Birds Foundation, at  https://www.30birdsfoundation.org/, the organization their group founded to support the evacuation mission.

Even though Selendy has leadership and strategic planning experience, being a co-founder and managing partner of her own firm, she said nothing could prepare her for trying to evacuate women and girls from a war zone. One of the most challenging aspects of the project, she shared, was deciding whose lives were most at risk and who most likely would be harmed by the Taliban if they stayed in Afghanistan.

"It's just a very weighty responsibility to decide who gets out and who doesn't, and that was extremely hard for me," she said.

Read the full interview here.

This is a press release from Selendy & Gay PLLC, https://www.selendygay.com/contact   November 18, 2021

The 30 Birds Foundation is dedicated to safeguarding the future of a group of 450 Afghans, predominantly schoolgirls, who we have evacuated from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. 

Learn more about the 30 Birds Foundation and their work at https://www.30birdsfoundation.org/projects-3 and in the following media coverage:

Video interview on CNN - How a secret network helped evacuate hundreds of Afghans available at https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2021/10/21/amanpour-afghanistan-escape-thirty-birds-foundation.cnn

The Globe & Mail - 18 September 2021, How 250 Afghans travelled across their country toward a new life in Saskatoon

The Globe & Mail - 15 October 2021, More than 250 Afghan refugees, many of them young girls, arrive in Calgary

The Spokesman Review - 30 May 2021, Trudy Rubin: ‘Don’t give up on us.’ Afghan girls and women in grave danger when US troops leave

National Post - 18 May 2021,Terry Glavin: Bloodshed, not peace, awaits Afghanistan in the wake of U.S. pullout, Observers predict a conflagration that could leave a quarter of a million people dead, or worse

Foreign Policy - 24 February 2016, Reimagining Afghanistan’s Future, One Pupil at A Time, Candace Rondeaux reviews Jeffrey E. Stern’s new book about a sui generis school that defies the odds and norms in today’s Afghanistan.

Article published on the Horizon International Solutions Site December 6, 2021. 

Personal Note from Janine Selendy, Horizon International Co-Chair, Founder, and Publisher: Jennifer Selendy is my daughter-in-law, son, Philippe’s wife.