Aulia was lying on the ground outside Kabul’s airport as gunfire erupted around her.
It was August 2021, days after the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan. Thousands of people crowded the airport, hoping to escape the country. Among them was Aulia, then 13, and her family who were trying to leave for the United States.
As she waited outside the airport, Aulia met another young woman who shared her dream.
“She said she wanted to be free and she wanted to finish her education,” Aulia said.
The girl was wounded in the shooting, and Aulia never learned what happened to her. The memory of her words has stayed with her.
Aulia, whose family lives at The Residences at Diamond Hill, arrived in the United States in late 2022 after more than a year of uncertainty following the Taliban takeover.
Today, she is one of 33 residents of National CORE affordable housing communities awarded a 2026 Building Bright Futures scholarship by the Hope through Housing Foundation. Her scholarship will help support her educational goals as she prepares to pursue a nursing degree.
“I’m a girl who came from another world,” she said. “I’m the oldest child. Everything I’m first. I’m the example for everything for my family. It’s so much. I need to be strong.”
That sense of responsibility shapes many of Aulia’s goals.
Aulia’s dream of becoming a nurse was inspired in part by her father, who once hoped to study medicine himself. He left school after high school to help his parents and later worked with Americans in Afghanistan. That allowed him to get a visa to leave the country.
When her family’s plans to leave Afghanistan fell apart, they moved in with relatives and waited for another opportunity to escape the country. All they had left were the clothes in their luggage.
“We sold everything because we thought we were leaving for America,” Aulia said.
For a time, her father was able to leave Afghanistan while Aulia, her mother and her siblings remained behind.
“It was so hard,” she said.
Eventually, the family reunited and settled in the United States. In January 2023, Aulia started high school.
“I come with zero English,” she said.
Adjusting to a new country, a new language and a new school was difficult.
“I tell my mom, ‘I can’t do it,'” she said.
Her mother encouraged her to keep going.
Education has always been important in Aulia’s family. Her mother was an elementary school teacher in Afghanistan, and several relatives have worked as professors, principals and educators.
The oldest of five children, Aulia also began working at age 16 to help support her family. Today, she works part time at TJ Maxx with her mother after school and on weekends.
She plans to attend college and study nursing, with hopes of eventually becoming a doctor. She also hopes to encourage other Afghan girls to pursue their education.
“In Afghanistan, after sixth grade, girls can’t go to school,” Aulia said. “I want to learn more English and be a girl who is helping other Afghan girls.”
Aulia said receiving a Building Bright Futures scholarship will help her pursue those goals and ease some of the financial pressure on her family.
“We don’t have anything. We are sending money to our relatives in Afghanistan,” she said. “I want to keep going to school and helping people.”
Nearly five years after she lay on the ground outside Kabul’s airport hoping to escape Afghanistan, Aulia is focused on building a future in the U.S.
“I am so happy I’m living here, free,” she said.