Elena's Light Founder Fereshteh Ganjavi (left) with Qaderi (center) and Siawash. When Siawash reads the once-unsent letters that his mom wrote to him while she was living in exile and he was a child in Afghanistan, he isn’t filled with sorrow. “Every time I read the letters my mom wrote to me, I see that history repeats and repeats,” Siawash said before a crowd in Yale’s Dwight Hall. ​“I have hope for the future.” The two were featured in the latest installment of Lighting the Future, a speaker series hosted by New Haven-based nonprofit Elena’s Light. A crowd of 40 people gathered on Dec. 5 to hear from two women who have seen firsthand the implications of two pivotal moments in recent history — the onset of the war in Ukraine, and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan. Elena’s Light is a nonprofit that supports refugee women in the Greater New Haven area, with services including in-home English as a Second Language (ESL) classes, driver’s license test preparation, and health education. Founded by Fereshteh Ganjavi in 2017, Elena’s Light has since served hundreds of refugee women.Homeira Qaderi, author of Dancing in the Mosque: An Afghan Mother’s Letter to Her Son, was joined by humanitarian aid worker Julia Abratańska on the evening of Dec. 5 for a conversation about their experiences and activism. Melissa Hazlitt, an emergency physician and human rights activist, facilitated the event.Abratańska is the co-founder of Renegade Relief Runners (3XR), an organization dedicated to moving resources into Ukraine following Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country in February 2024. ​“There was a lot of aid stuck at the Polish border, and not many people were willing to go into the country to deliver what was needed inside,” she explained.Abratańska (left) shares the highlights of her work in Ukraine. Abratańska, who is 28, was a marketing specialist in Poland prior to founding 3XR. Having worked with NGOs in her spare time, she spent the week following the invasion supporting Ukrainian refugees arriving at a train station in Poland.Abratańska connected with fellow volunteers on social media, including Chris Tiller, with whom she founded 3XR. ​“We bought a few cars, and Chris drove to a refugee center in Kharkiv. The manager said they need food, soap, and basic hygiene, so Chris called me and asked, ​‘How much soap can you get me in one week?’”Abratańska was able to fill up an entire truck. Since 3XR’s first trip into Kharkiv, several partnerships have helped the organization distribute diapers, medical aid, hospital beds, microscopes, and ultrasounds — courtesy of Hazlitt — throughout Ukraine.When asked where she finds strength, Abratańska said, ​“The Ukrainian people drive my resilience. I see them not giving up, working towards victory, and I feel that if they can do it, I can do it, too.”According to Abratańska, most humanitarian aid organizations are led by women; however, due to safety concerns, their male counterparts often carry out the field initiatives that are spotlighted in the media.“I just hope I can keep doing what I’m doing and have the drive to continue this work.” Abratańska spoke directly to the women at the event: ​“Don’t let them tell you cannot. I’m not afraid to ask for help when needed, but I won’t take no for an answer.”Neither will Qaderi, who took the hot seat following a rousing round of applause for Abratańska. While living in exile in California, Qaderi wrote countless unsent letters to her two-year-old son living in Afghanistan, who had been told she had died after her ex-husband claimed custody. The letters were later compiled into her seventh book and award-winning memoir, Dancing in the Mosque, published in 2020.For Qaderi, who had aspired to be a writer since she was as young as 6 years old, writing became an outlet to process and ​“say goodbye” to the trauma she has carried since militant group the Taliban’s rise to power in 1996.“I knew that [in Afghanistan,] a good woman is a quiet woman,” said Qaderi, who explained the pain she experienced while separated from her son in 2016. ​“I didn’t want to be a good woman anymore, so I started to write … I started to write to be a bad woman.”Qaderi’s mother, who is now 65, married when she was in the ninth grade. Despite her passion and talent for art, her husband’s family didn’t allow Qaderi’s mother to pick up a paintbrush.“She is too much angry. She is sad. She carries graves in her eyes. You can see her sorrow easily; it is very touchable,” Qaderi said of her mother.“I didn’t want to be a woman at the end of the day like my mom. I wanted another path, and that is why I started to fight … But I did not fight for the women of Afghanistan. I fought for myself.”When the Taliban first prohibited girls from attending school in 1996, Qaderi and three friends created a self-taught writing class under the guise of a needlework group called the Golden Needle Sewing Circle.After leaving Afghanistan with her son in 2021 during the Taliban’s resurgence, Qaderi resurrected the Golden Needle Sewing Circle through Facebook. She offered virtual classes to boys and girls interested in writing, and now teaches 500 students weekly over Zoom.“The girls are taught how women can bake and do needlework in Afghanistan, but I teach them how women can write, how women can speak loud, how women can change the definition of a good woman or a bad woman.”Hazlitt invited Qaderi’s son, Siawash, to share his thoughts on Dancing in the Mosque as the intended recipient of the letters. ​“Whenever I read them, I’m sad, because of all the sadness and sorrow my mom had to go through, but after every letter there’s a chapter, and in that chapter is hopefulness and joyfulness.”A writer himself with 13 short stories in his portfolio, Siawash shared his hopes for the future. ​“With the help of men, we can make it better.”“This was a heartwarming evening with outstanding humans sharing on the impacts of war, perseverance and their reservoir of strength,” said Hazlitt as attendees lined up for food, cooked by one of Elena’s Light’s clients.“Right now, the world sees the Taliban as the only story of Afghanistan,” said Qaderi after the panel, signing copies of her book in both Farsi and English.“I believe every woman in Afghanistan, every girl that is born, is born a soldier. She is fighting for her identity, and she will show us that even if the world says yes to the Taliban, she will say no.”Qaderi signs a copy of her book for an attendee.