Amina remembers well the day the Taliban arrived in Kabul. It was not yet eight in the morning when people began desperately knocking on each other’s doors, shouting for them to leave. that the Taliban are arriving in the city. Not knowing what to expect, this 22-year-old Afghan girl’s family took refuge with friends. A day later, they returned home, from which Amina did not leave, except to leave Afghanistan – “I was scared. On our street there were five girls who beat themselves on the legs with a whip, in the street, because they were not covered, they were dressed. in a burka “.

Amina was born in Bamiyan province (one of the Buddhas killed by the Taliban two decades ago, and whom the girl once saw), but grew up in Kabul. I went to university a month ago when the Taliban arrived and closed the school. – and everything else. The fact of belonging to a musical group scared her even more.

Amina’s story is told in Lisbon, at the Portuguese Hindu Community Center in Lumiar, where a meeting was held yesterday for 70 Afghan refugees who have started taking Portuguese lessons. Four classes in addition to the five, which have been operating since October, with 90 students, in the Hindu center and elsewhere in the capital with refugees and migrants from different countries: from Bangladesh to Pakistan, from India to Nepal, but also from Ukraine and Peru.

At the ceremony, attended by representatives of the Hindu and Ismaili communities, Maria João Thomas, ISCTE professor and researcher in the Maghreb and the Middle East – and one of the main figures behind this project – tells the collective story of this project. a group that is now starting to learn Portuguese. Having different origins, they are united by the fact that they Ismaili Shiites, apostates in the eyes of the Taliban: “These people could be convicted of apostasy in Afghanistan, they fled from death.“They were rescued either from Afghanistan or from refugee camps, some of whom were already in Turkey or Greece, from where they fled, and taken to Portugal by the Ismaili community, who took it upon themselves to welcome and integrate these refugees. And the” majority. ” “Competence is critical and necessary to achieve the goal of autonomy precisely in language learning,” said a representative of the Ismaili community.

The project that was born with … a book

There was a library before classes. “This project was born with a book,” says Maria João Tomás, before specifying: “This is not one, there were 500 of them.” Number of Copies that Started the Middle East and North Africa Public Library – which by that time had passed a thousand copies – in the Lisbon parish of Arrows. From the library to teaching Portuguese to migrants and refugees, it was not far from the idea, which was brought to life at the Hindu Community Center, which also has classes at the Ismaili Center in Lisbon, São Domingos de Benfica and the Bangladesh Embassy in Belene.

But there is still much to be done, argues Maria Joao Tomas, who argues that a great dynamic is required in teaching Portuguese to foreignersso as not to discourage those who are studying. “There is a big gap between what is actually and what is on offer,” the professor warns, stressing that she has a waiting list of 400 people. Classes for Afghan refugees will consist of 25-hour modules, each with a diploma, the degree of which will increase as the modules accumulate.