Roia Shefayee is the founding partner of the law firm De Franceschi & Shefayee LLP that advises startups and mid-level companies with legal issues.  Ms. Shefayee is extremely well-educated and holds a law degree from Santa Clara University. She also holds a Masters in International Economics and Development from John Hopkins University-SAIS, and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Economy from the University of California at Berkeley. She has been actively involved in women’s issues and human rights issues since 1990s and has been involved with many organizations that work in this field. She has worked with Global Fund for Women, Amnesty International, Karamah: Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, Egyptian Organization for Human Rights and Public International Law and Policy Group.

As an Afghan American, she especially feels for the cause of education of women and is on the advisory board of a non-profit organization that is working in this direction. She believes that social media is very crucial in today’s world. She herself uses twitter and LinkedIn fairly often. She is a strong proponent of education especially for women and youth. She believes that women can benefit financially, intellectually, and socially if they are better educated. She considers the role of Film Annex towards women’s education and building internet classrooms commendable. At a time when many aid agencies and others are withdrawing from Afghanistan in view of the impending withdrawal of NATO forces, Film Annex stays actively engaged in the region and is doing path-breaking work on the ground.

She also sees digital media as a powerful medium to disseminate information and learning especially to those women who are deprived of the traditional models of learning. She believes that digital media can empower women to speak out and to gain knowledge.

She sees the creation of educational infrastructure in the form of schools and other educational institutions as a powerful step towards enabling education among women and youth of Afghanistan. The economy can only progress as more people in war-ravaged Afghanistan get educated and in turn employed.

See Roia Shefayee's complete interview in the video above.

To find out more about Film Annex's Education Initiative in Afghanistan, click here.

To read all my posts on Afghanistan, see my webtv.