Meet the student offering opportunity to diaspora community

Through tuition sessions and by providing personal support and guidance, Adin and his team of volunteers aimed to encourage young people of Afghan heritage on their journeys through education and on into the working world.

Thus, in December of that year, the Afghan Student Union (AfSU) was brought into being with a small remit and a singular focus.

However, what started as a small project just 18 months ago has grown rapidly into a thriving community enterprise, with big ambitions and a much wider focus.

Together with a team of more than 30 volunteers, Adin helps organise and manage a broad range of activities offered by the union – and no longer just to those of Afghan heritage.

AfSU owns and runs two tuition centres; the first at Hendon School, in north London, and a second preparing to open its doors in east London, with students of all backgrounds welcome for tuition sessions covering everything from mathematics and geography to computer science and law.

Adin himself, a second-year politics student with the Department of Political Economy, runs sessions for students keen to learn. 

Alongside their tuition, the union also hosts networking events and sessions for people to meet with professionals of Afghan heritage. At an event held in March, for example, students from Afghan societies all over the UK were able to meet with an executive from Airbus working on space projects, a United Nations official, consultants, and many more.

The union also has plans afoot for a new think tank, the AfSU Think Tank, which they hope will provide a platform for scholars and professionals to work on policy and developmental solutions for the future of Afghanistan. They hope to publish academic journals focusing on these, and work with a range of academics and student bodies to provide viable solutions as to what Afghanistan may, one day, look like.

Adin said: “As I have Afghan heritage, I’ve always found it incredibly important to support the Afghan diaspora especially given recent events that have occurred within the country.

“This is what drove me to establish the Afghan Student Union and we have enjoyed incredible success. I lead a team of more than 30 students who are focused on supporting both the academic and personal journeys of Afghan students living in the UK, at all levels of their education, whether it be at primary, GCSE, A-Level or even university students.”

Despite its success, Adin hopes to build the project still further and already has exiting plans for the coming year and beyond.

He said: “In terms of our development, in the immediate future we are opening our second tuition centre in east London and are finalising talks with local schools which we are all excited about. Longer term, we are looking at having a board of directors and developing as a charitable enterprise at a national level.

“We are also hoping to have scholarships and bursaries for students and we are hoping to work closely with universities on that too. This will be a longer-term project, which we hope to begin at some point in the next academic year.”

The union is keen to hear from those interested in volunteering their time or who may be able to assist with tuition, or contribute to the think tank project. To find out more, visit https://afsu.org/ or e-mail adin.rasheedi@kcl.ac.uk for further information.