MAHBOBA RAWI
“Yet I’m feeling much more responsibility because my siblings [aged 24, 18 and 16] are here too. I need to support them with learning English and going to school and university.”
Since resettling in Melbourne, Fati has worked in a restaurant and completed a leadership course, but the place she feels most at home is on the soccer field. “The feeling is different here because you can be yourself, you can play like you are free, and you have more opportunities,” says Fati, whose national Afghan team was taken under the wing of A-League club Melbourne Victory and is now competing in Victoria’s State League 4 West. “It’s beautiful. We have our dreams and they are coming true.”
*Surname has been withheld.
On September 24, 2021, Mahboba Rawi waited at Sydney Airport, anticipation rising inside her. She was there to meet 11 orphan Afghan children, who had been guided in a secret mission from Kabul into Pakistan, and ultimately to safety in Australia.
Rawi, who was born in Kabul before fleeing to Pakistan as a teenager, resettled in Australia and founded not-for-profit Mahboba’s Promise in 2021. Today she runs four orphanages – or “hope houses” – across Afghanistan.
“Meeting the children that day was a dream come true,” Rawi says. “There’s also a sense of responsibility because I am the only mother they know. And they came from trauma.”
The children – 10 girls and one boy, ranging from a six-year-old to teenagers –moved into a five-bedroom home that Rawi, her colleagues and friends had decorated in happy colours. “The one thing I have for them is love, and I think it worked like a medicine, the language of love,” says Rawi.
Over the past 11 months, the children have been going to school, learning English, taking swimming lessons and splashing around at Aussie beaches. “I made the mistake of taking them to McDonald’s and now they keep asking to go back,” laughs Rawi. “The girls are playing with lipstick and jewellery, they are enjoying the freedom they have … They [come from] a country dominated by men, but these are loud, very strong-minded girls.”
Today, Rawi is foster mother to all the children; eight still live with her while three of them live with her sister. “I hope I will be alive for many, many years and see them finish university and become good leaders,” she says. “Every night I ask them all to leave their doors open. I go and cover them with blankets, sit beside them and think about their futures. Sometimes I burst into tears because they lost their [parents]. But when they sleep, they are like angels.”
“THE FEELING HERE IS DIFFERENT. YOU CAN PLAY LIKE YOU ARE FREE” – Fati