Afghan’s 1st Female Pilot makes Pit-Stop in M’luru on her World Solo Flight

Afghan’s 1st Female Pilot makes Pit-Stop in M’luru on her World Solo Flight

Shaesta Waiz, Afghanistan’s First Female Certified Civilian Pilot, now settled in USA makes a Pit-stop in Mangaluru on her Round-the-World Solo Flight

“When I was a little girl I thought maybe I would go to college, but I would get married at a young age and have a family. But then I found something that I really loved and that’s flying. It’s an incredible feeling to be the pilot of your own plane and to fly wherever your heart desires. It’s a passion that I really enjoy, that I protect, and that I want women from Afghanistan to experience as well. You can come from any background, you can have any set of challenges but what’s really important is that you have to dream, to dream big and work hard and go after it. Women are suffering a lot all over the world, but I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to be educated, to find something that I love which is flying and it breaks my heart because I know there are a lot of girls my age who haven’t had the opportunities. I want to do something to give back to these women in my country where I was born. Every time I open the door of an aircraft, I ask myself, ‘How did a girl with my background become so lucky? The truth is, anyone can be me. When I found my passion — flying — that’s when I started to challenge myself. I started to read. I started to do better in maths. I started to look at the world differently, the sky differently. What’s important is finding your passion and going after it.”- Shaesta Waiz

Mangaluru: Meet a daring and courageous woman who was born an Afghan refugee and now settled in Richmond-California, USA is flying around the world solo to inspire other women to follow their dreams. Shaesta Waiz, 29, started her epic flight in a small, single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza A36 plane from Florida, USA on 13 May 2017 and is visiting nearly 19 countries, approximately 25,800 kms, including Spain, Egypt, India, Singapore and Australia, before ending the trip back in Florida in August 2017. Through her India journey after she started from Afghanistan recently, she had to make a pit-stop at Mangaluru International Airport due to weather conditions-even though Mangaluru was not one of her stops as per her tour schedule, but she was happy to spend couple of days in this Coastal town with the friendly folks here and with the Hotel Taj Gateway crew, and also savour few local cuisine.

Shaesta Waiz greeted by Peter Nirmal, the General Manager of Hotel Taj Gateway, Mangaluru on her arrival at the hotel

Shaesta Waiz was born in a refugee camp and traveled to the US in 1987 with her family to escape the Soviet-Afghan war. She grew up in an underprivileged area of Richmond, California, with her five sisters in a poor community where she claims “sharing textbooks with classmates and watching friends drop out of high school was the norm.” and it wasn’t until she discovered aviation that she started thinking about going to college and having a career. She founded a non-profit organization called Dreams Soar and wants her flight around the world to help inspire girls and young women to pursue science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) education. She is the first person in her family to earn a bachelor’s and a master’s degree. She also is the first female certified civilian pilot from Afghanistan and by the end of her challenge aims to be the youngest woman to have flown solo around the world. And she already has plans to return to her country-Afghanistan, when the time comes, and maybe opening a flight school or doing something so that women can experience aviation in Afghanistan.

During her 30 stopovers, the engineering graduate and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), which is backing her trip, will host events to try to get schoolchildren interested in science – notably aeronautics. According to ICAO, less than five per cent of commercial pilots are women. “If you really break it down into science, technology, engineering and math and explore what those career fields offer, it’s very exciting. We hope to present to the young kids at these events what those careers are … and hopefully get them to pursue these careers that are in need of more talent. Every time I open the door of an aircraft, I ask myself, ‘How did a girl with my background become so lucky? The truth is, anyone can be me.” says Waiz.

According to the Dreams Soar site, their mission is “to partner with strong female role models at the 28-30 stops along the route and together, share and promote the importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education.” She and these other leaders on her route wanting to encourage young girls, especially minorities, will be leading these STEM workshops to help eliminate any of the intimidation girls may feel about the aviation or aeronautics fields as well as the rest of STEM.

Shaesta Waiz in her message says, “You can come from any background, you can have any set of challenges but what’s really important is that you have to dream, to dream big and work hard and go after it. When I was a little girl I thought maybe I would go to college, but I would get married at a young age and have a family. But then I found something that I really loved and that’s flying. It’s an incredible feeling to be the pilot of your own plane and to fly wherever your heart desires. It’s a passion that I really enjoy, that I protect, and that I want women from Afghanistan to experience as well.”

“Women are suffering a lot all over the world, but I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to be educated, to find something that I love which is flying and it breaks my heart because I know there are a lot of girls my age who haven’t had the opportunities. I want to do something to give back to these women in my country where I was born. Every time I open the door of an aircraft, I ask myself, ‘How did a girl with my background become so lucky? The truth is, anyone can be me. When I found my passion — flying — that’s when I started to challenge myself. I started to read. I started to do better in maths. I started to look at the world differently, the sky differently. What’s important is finding your passion and going after it.”

Dreams Soar site states, “the number of women in the aviation field today is staggeringly low, and one of the reasons — according to the Teaching Women to Fly Research Project — is that “Girls need to see living aviation female role models.” Once again driving home how important it is for all Smart Girls to be able to see ourselves and our ambitions adequately represented, as the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media always reminds us “if she can see it, she can be it.”

Team Mangalorean wishes Shaesta Waiz all success in her mission flying solo around the world. You Go Girl!