Sisters from Afghanistan work to support future immigrants and their advocates
September 30, 2024
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Shakila Fro (MSW ’25) was nervous. It was the day of her video shoot, and Fro—a Loyola University Chicago student—was looking over her script, preparing to get in front of the camera. Two empty chairs had been placed in front of a green screen, and it was almost her turn to perform as the character she had created: a 25-year-old woman from Afghanistan who had suffered abuse in the United States. She wanted to do it justice.
The shoot was for a role-play video that would live online as part of a project helmed by Loyola’s Center for Immigrant and Refugee Accompaniment, or CIRA. The project is focused on the development of a forensic mental health curriculum that teaches students about mental health support and services for those navigating the immigration process. (“Forensic” can refer to the investigation of a crime but here it refers to its other meaning, “relating to courts of law.”)
For this project, Loyola students are working alongside Professors Maria Vidal de Haymes and Abha Rai, the director and associate director, respectively, of CIRA and they hope the new curriculum will eventually be available to students around the world. The students collaborating on the project come from the U.S., the Democratic Republic of the Congo, El Salvador, Ghana, Mexico, Kazakhstan. Two are from Afghanistan: Fro and her older sister Farzana Farzam (MA ’24).
When people find these videos, they’ll understand how to get the help they need.
— Shakila Fro (MSW ’25)
Farzam came to Loyola before Fro. In spring 2024, Farzam was finishing her final semester of her two-year program, a master’s degree in international affairs. Fro came to Loyola more recently. She’s in her first semester of a master’s degree in social work.
Farzam heard about Loyola through a Jesuit priest she met while she was studying in India—he had attended Loyola and recommended she apply. “It was soon after the collapse of Afghanistan that I applied at Loyola,” Farzam says. She was hoping to find a safe place to live and study. “I did not even expect to get admitted,” she says. “But I had the courage to apply and see. And then I got in.”
She kept Fro updated on her experience and, after hearing good things from her sister, Fro followed in her footsteps and joined her in Chicago. Now they live together in Rogers Park.
“It’s very important to have your family with you,” Farzam says.
On the day of the video shoot for the curriculum project, Fro’s time to film had arrived. She took a breath and sat in one of the empty chairs in front of the camera. Dr. Mauricio Cifuentes, a Loyola School of Social Work alum, portrayed a mental health professional, soliciting information that Fro’s character’s lawyer could use in court. The goal of the video is to bring to life an immigration process that can be complex and confusing.
Fro spoke as her character: a young woman from Afghanistan who had come to the United States and began working in the home of a wealthy family. But when the character experienced abuse at the hands of the family’s father, she didn’t know where to turn. She was undocumented and knew she’d struggle to find another job. So, her character applied for something called U nonimmigrant status, also known as the U visa, which creates a path forward for survivors of domestic violence who are new to the country. Her character was hopeful this visa would open a door to a better, safer life in the U.S.
When Fro’s shoot wrapped, the classmates who had been watching broke out into applause. They told her she’d done great. She sat beside them, beaming. In a few moments, another student took her place in front of the camera and began to tell another story.
Later, outside the studio, Fro explained why these videos were an important part of a curriculum dealing with forensic mental health. They will help those learning about the legal challenges of the immigration system, but they may help immigrants as well.
“It’s visual,” Fro says. “When people find these videos, they’ll understand how to get the help they need.”
She also reflected on what could lay ahead for the fictional character she’d created. “It’s not the end of her story,” she says. “She just applied for her visa and there’s more to that process. But still, she’s hopeful. She’s thinking, ‘If I get it, I will be free from abuse and also live with dignity and respect.’”
The sisters are also working on another project: a study that aims at use AI to help Afghan evacuees integrate into life in Illinois and Tennessee. Professors Rai and Vidal De Haymes are two co-leads on the study and Farzam and Fro are serving as cultural experts and liaisons. The plan is to develop an interactive AI website, called Dost (or friend, in Persian), to support newly-arriving Afghans at times when they may not be able to seek support from an agency or therapist. This summer, the project was awarded the Schreiber venture fund, a competitive grant offered through Loyola.
Loyola and the city of Chicago have served as home for the sisters as they work on these projects, but they still think often about their homeland. They explained that even though they grew up in Kabul, Afghanistan, (which is in Kabul Province), they are from the Maidan Wardak Province. “In Afghanistan, it’s not where you are born, it’s where your ancestors are from,” Farzam says.
And when Fro and Farzam imagine their future after graduation, they think about both the U.S. and Afghanistan. Fro hopes to work in migration with NGOs. Farzam hopes to work with victims of domestic violence. In the U.S. victims of domestic violence “do receive a lot of help from different NGOs,” she says, “so I would navigate the possibility of finding some way where I can help Afghan women who are in Afghanistan.”
For both sisters, it was important to create a better, safer life in a new country after the fall of Kabul in 2021. For now, Farzam and Fro enjoy living together and they’re both grateful to have a sister nearby. They often check in on each other and cook dinner in the evenings. Recently, they were walking together on campus and heard a group of students talking about Kabul House, a restaurant in Evanston. “I overheard them talking about this Afghan restaurant and how good the food is,” Farzam remembered. “I felt really proud.”
Neither Fro nor Farzam had been to Kabul House, and they didn’t plan on going. “We’re used to that food,” Farzam says. They don’t need to go out to find a taste of home—they have it under their own roof. “For us, it’s normal,” she says.
