“My cohort of ten Afghan women mining engineers have reached out to Women Leaders of Tomorrow in February 2022. A nonprofit organization based in Vancouver BC which advocates and supports Afghan women and girls’ education. WLOT has fundraised through the generous donors in Vancouver BC, and made it possible for me to study at Applied Mining Engineering at UBC. I started my engineering classes on January 2023“
Arezo Ibrahimi was born and raised in Bamiyan province of Afghanistan. She holds a bachelor’s degree in the field of geological engineering and hydrogeology from Kabul Polytechnic University. While completing her bachelor’s degree, she began working in a Geo and Mining engineering services company as a data analyst, and reporting engineer in governmental and foreign large-scale infrastructure projects.
In 2021 Arezo received a scholarship in technical vocational and educational training (TVET) in the field of geology, oil and gas from Kazakh British Technical University. After the Taliban takeover of the central Afghan government, women’s education above grade six was banned. Arezo, along with her cohort of nine other Afghan women engineers were trapped in Kazakhstan. Arezo reached out to WLOT in February of 2022, and WLOT was able to connect them with UBC. A group of incredibly generous corporate donors came together to support the cohort of ten Afghan women with full ride scholarships to study a Master of Applied Science in Geological Engineering.