Spotlight
Research Assistant, Refugee Activist Working to Improve Life in Afghanistan Named Among BBC’s Top 100 Women for Efforts
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hen the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in fall 2021, Nasrin Husseini watched in despair as change and progress in her native country unraveled, especially for girls and women. “I was in shock, I was distressed,” she says. Husseini, a University of Guelph grad, knows first-hand how it feels to live amid threats from the Taliban and to be barred from getting an education. She fled Afghanistan in 2010 when it became unsafe for her to continue working as a veterinarian. Husseini eventually made her way to U of G, earning an M.Sc. in immunology in 2020. She was among the first graduate students to receive the $50,000 Arrell Food
28 | PORTICO Summer 2022
Institute scholarship. Now a research assistant in U of G’s Department of Pathobiology, she is helping transform Canada’s beef industry. But the resurgence of the Taliban has turned her attention to her homeland, where she fears for the future of women, girls and minorities in Afghanistan. She wants to make a difference. “Right now, because of the crisis that has happened in Afghanistan, I didn’t think for a second—I just started helping and working for Afghan refugees,” she says. Husseini volunteers with Canadian Hazara Humanitarian Services, a non-profit organization. She helped the group approach Danby Products Ltd. in Guelph and get the company’s support to settle Hazara refugees in the city.
PHOTO: ROB O’FLANAGAN
Nasrin Husseini helps settle refugees fleeing Afghanistan.
