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The Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies is working with refugees from Afghanistan on a conversation project to help them learn English.
The Female Tactical Platoon (FTP) was an all-female military group consisting of Afghani women who trained and went on missions with the United States Army. The responsibilities of these women, also called FTPs, were to translate for military personnel and work alongside them on the frontlines.
When the Taliban captured the city of Kabul in Afghanistan, many FTPs left their homes in Afghanistan for the United States in fear for their lives.
The original Female Tactical Platoon consisted of approximately 60 FTPs. Currently, there are 42 FTPs residing in the United States and seven of them reside in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Many of these women living in Blacksburg take English classes at the Virginia Tech Language and Culture Institute (LCI). Through the Blacksburg community, these women received support in getting rides to English classes in the LCI and gaining employment through the Blacksburg Refugee Partnership. However, support was deemed to be more difficult for other FTPs outside of the Blacksburg community.
The remaining FTPs were dispersed throughout different states; in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington and West Virginia. FTPs were dispersed based on if they had family members near the area or through locations that were willing to give them a helping hand.
The citizenship status of many FTPs in the United States are still in a limbo. “Some have applied for asylum and have received it. But for others, they’re just waiting on Congress to say, yes, you can make it permanent,” said Brett Shadle, associate director of Virginia Tech’s Center for Refugee, Migrant, and Displacement Studies and one of the leading faces of the ACP.
The idea to create a project to teach Afghani refugees the English language came from Sophia Nadasy, a current senior at Virginia Tech majoring in creative technologies and minoring in computer science and French. Because her mother is from Afghanistan, Nadasy felt a direct connection to the Afghani refugee movement.
“My mom is from Afghanistan so I grew up with an Afghan household. Since coming to Blacksburg I’ve been volunteering with my sister and with the Blacksburg Refugee Partnership,” Nadasy said. Through her volunteering she met Shadle, who came to her with the idea of creating a project to aid FTPs on learning English.
The Afghan Conversation Project was not made to replace English classes for non-English speaking refugees and was instead made to give them realistic conversations to practice their English. Volunteers were guided by instructor in Virginia Tech’s LCI Meredith Hutton.
While many FTPs do not have any experience in the military, Lieutenant Colonel in the United States Army Daniel Harrison’s experience with the conversation project is very similar to other volunteers in the program. Despite Harrison’s extensive experience, he still expressed worries about not being of enough value and use to the FTPs and tries to make the most of his weekly meetings with his FTP partner.
“I want to help her (his FTP partner) solve problems; I don’t want to be the solution itself. So it’s finding the balance of what are her needs, requirements and desires and how I can do that,” Harrison said.
Harrison tries to keep conversations simple until his FTP partner is more comfortable with the English language to have more nuanced conversations. Generally, his questions are under the topic of the weather, what the FTP partner had been up to the prior week before and any miscommunications she might have had at work that they could work through.
“That is not a simple thing to communicate with when I don’t speak Turkmen, Pashto or Dari like she does, and she’s still building some of that English language proficiency,” Harrison said.
Harrison finds that his training in Afghanistan has aided him in his work volunteering for the Afghan Conversation Project.
“I’ve already had a significant amount of cultural training, in preparation to go do those things that help me understand some of the culture they (Afghanis) come from and a couple, you know, a couple of phrases or words that I still remember that are useful to help when I’m working with someone who has not fully inculcated English into how they think, which is incredibly challenging,” Harrison said.
Harrison also found that as women who assisted the U.S. military, the FTPs find a comfort in seeing an active member of the army.
“I think it’s kind of like a warm hug to see somebody in uniform for her (the FTP). She misses having that camaraderie and extended family kind of relationship,” Harrison said.
Many FTPs would like to rejoin the military as soon as their legal status in the country is solidified while others have taken a different career route. Madina Nazari, a former FTP living in Des Moines, Iowa, has begun working toward a career in the medical field. Currently, she is applying for advanced classes to become a certified nursing assistant while living with her sister and nephew. Her parents currently reside in Pakistan.
While spending a lot of her time working in the FTP alongside the U.S. Special Forces, Nazari also worked in the hospital near her home in Afghanistan.
“I graduated from high school and university (in Afghanistan) and in Afghanistan I worked (as a) hospital midwife,” Nazari said.
Despite the language barrier, Nazari has persisted with her goal to work in a hospital in the United States. While the English language became a difficult obstacle to overcome, Nazari says she still doesn’t let this get in her way.
“I want to try again every time,” Nazari said.
Along with the conversation project, Nazari is also taking English classes at her local college, Des Moines Area Community College (DMACC). She finds the conversation project to be helpful to her struggle in speaking the language, especially due to the varying accents across North America.
“It (the ACP) is very important for all and it is really a great project for me, for all FTPs, it’s very good,” Nazari said.
While many FTPs are like Nazari and would like to become nurses, others want to tell their story to people by strengthening their English and public speaking skills, which is one of the aims of the conversation project.
According to Shadle, the ultimate objective of the conversation project is for participants to eventually no longer need the program.
“That sort of first goal is just that it dies a natural death,” Shadle said. “The best part is if they don’t need it.”
