'I remember my parents' worried faces' - Powerful event held in Kilkenny as part of Refugee Week

Kilkenny had the honour of welcoming Dr Manizha Khan as a very special guest to the city last month as part of the locality’s Refugee Week celebrations.

Dr Khan, an Afghan native and successful dentist and lecturer, spoke at the well-attended event organised by the Kilkenny Integration Team in the Butler Gallery.

In an open and honest 45 minute session, the Afghan native shared her experiences of being a refugee here in Ireland and fleeing her native country, at a time where its people are oppressed by the in power Taliban.

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Dr Khan also used the event to dispel some myths and misperceptions she has seen first hand living as a refugees in Ireland.
Events were organised across Kilkenny ranging from sports to arts with the week built around the theme 'Community as a Superpower'.

"I feel that this theme is very, very important and very much needed because all of us, we live in a community together. It is a two way road," Dr Khan told those gathered.

So, if you give me compassion and love and a place to restart my life, it is my job as well to give my part to the community and make it more beautiful, make it more colourful and make it more kind.”

"Most people who become refugees and who come to other countries, a very large number of them are educated," she continued.

"They have good skills, they have good degrees and some come with the experience of working in a profession.

"The first thing you lose as a person when you become a refugee is all that experience and the education and you just change from whoever you were, like for example, Manizha, a lecturer, a dentist and you just turn into Manizha, a refugee," Dr Khan commented.

"In the past three years, especially the first year when I was in Ireland, I totally forgot who I was. When you become a refugee, the only thing you care about is can I be the same person who I was before," she said.

"As a refugee in Ireland, I have received a lot of support from kind people like you, from different programs and different projects. People who looked at me with the same respect of who I was before becoming a refugee and didn't just look at me as a refugee, so I got the courage to restart," she continued, confirming she has returned to work as a highly qualified dentist.

A now honourary Rebel, living in Cork, Dr Khan was formerly a senior dentist in Afghanistan and served as the Dean of Dental School in Herat University. However, as soon as the Taliban regained power in 2021, her life as she knew it changed forever after receiving threats from the militant group. Unfortunately, this was not an unfamiliar scenario for Dr Khan and her family to be in.

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"When I look back to Afghanistan as a child, I mostly remember the good parts but I do remember the bombs and missiles and the continuous war going on and our neighbours being attacked," she recalled.

"My parents had a continuous fear for us that ‘when is this missile going to come to our house’ and if we will be alive or dead.

"I remember my parents' worried faces," she added.

But, despite Dr Khan’s and many other families challenges, their hardships can be lost on some.

"People kind of think that when a refugee comes to a country, they're just poor people, miserable people. They had very difficult lives. They must be bad people," Dr Khan claimed.

"They're lazy people. They don't want to work, get social welfare, a free house, and just want to live there, just like that. That is sometimes how a refugee is introduced but that is not true. I’m not saying that... Almost all refugees that have to leave their country, they have a reason for it."

The proud Afghan woman also emphasised the contrast between the Taliban and the country’s people.

"In each of us, we have our own colour, our own language, our own dress code. But none of them have the same beliefs that Taliban have now, with the many cultures and beliefs now 'destroyed' by the Taliban, leaving Dr Khan for her country’s future.

"I just fear that someday you might just look in Wikipedia or maybe in a museum to find who Afghans were or what their culture was."

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