Jawad Joya
Afghanistan
UWCAD
(2002-2004)
Jawad is a living example of how hope and hard work can overcome seemingly impossible circumstances.
Living in the chaos of Kabul and confined to a wheelchair because of polio, this son of an illiterate and impoverished Shiite Muslims faced a bleak future in the late 1990s. The ruling Taliban discouraged education generally, especially for girls or the handicapped. An Italian doctor working at a Red Cross facility recognized Jawad's potential and arranged a series of clandestine tutors for him. Languages came easily for Jawad and so did computer skills. By the time he was 13, he was working in the Red Cross facility as a programmer and beginning to envision a fulfilling life for himself.
His friendship with the doctor and with an Italian journalist he was to meet in 2002, following the fall of the Taliban, led to Jawad's liberation from war-torn Afghanistan and admission to the United World College of the Adriatic in Duino. As he was finishing his International Baccalaureate diploma there, he applied for admission to colleges in the United States and Canada. Earlham was one of the academically rigorous institutions that accepted him and offered him a full scholarship.
· Research Fellow and Intern at United States Senate (June 2007 – August 2007)
· Assistant to Vice President—Investments (Internship), UBS Wealth Management (September 2006 – December 2006)
· Special Assistant to Senior Export Manager (Internship) at ILLYCAFFE’ Trieste, Italy (June 2003 – August 2003)
· Director, Data Bank Systems ICRC (July 1999 – July 2002)
Jawad is currently a Strategic Policy Analyst in Washington D.C. Metro Aera
