ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2024
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. This year, 52,000+ young leaders applied to join the Class of 2024 on 6,000+ campuses across 170 nations. 280+ campuses worldwide (just 5%) were selected to host the 4,000+ Millennium Fellows.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT BAHARA KAZIMI, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2024.
Columbia University | New York, United States | Advancing SDG 5, SDG 4 & UNAI 3
" Hearing stories of my mother and my aunts, who dropped out of school during the 90s, under the Taliban, while conversely, listening to my father and uncles, who were privileged to continue their education, all I am reminded of is inequality. Those stories not only have kindled my personal desires, but also serve as the genesis of my academic and professional pursuits, to fight for human rights and gender equality globally and in Afghanistan. I am excited to use the opportunity as a Millennium Fellow to raise awareness about hundreds of experiences like that. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: The Heard
I am planning to use the Millennium Fellowship as an opportunity to hone and deepen my knowledge and awareness of the root causes of inequality. I hope to form and lead a task force composed of eight students from Afghanistan and other parts of the world to organize lectures, information sessions and writing workshops to raise awareness about ongoing atrocities and inequalities faced by women and girls in Afghanistan. During this semester-long campaign, I want to conduct four information sessions and four public lectures at Columbia University. These lectures and sessions will aim at garnering support from the two campuses and from among my Millennium Fellows. Simultaneously, I will conduct at least two opinion/commentary writing workshops to train at least 10 young women from Afghanistan to write and publish on major news outlets globally. The three different components of the campaign will carry one overarching objective, and that is, preparing for a larger advocacy movement in anticipation of the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on November 25, 2024. The ultimate goal of the project is to persuade the United Nations Human Rights Council to leverage their power and improve the situation of girls and women in Afghanistan. I believe the Millennium Fellowship will help me realize this dream of mine by allowing me to access world-class training and get connected to a global network of like-minded individuals.
About the Millennium Fellow
Bahara Kazimi is a rising junior undergraduate in the School of General Studies at Columbia University. She majors in Political Science and International Relations. She is originally from Afghanistan. She graduated from Pegah High School in December 2019. Bahara served as the President of the Pegah Student Council from 2016-2017. During high school, she also worked as the Director of Be the Change, a non-profit organization based in Kabul. Bahara has also participated in different women/youth-initiative leadership conferences, such as the 7-week short course in Leadership Studies through the Institute for Leadership Development in 2017, as well as being an organizer of Youth Leadership Camp-2017. She also represented Switzerland in the 3rd Edition of the Pamir Model United Nations in 2018 and as the Delegate of Badakhshan in the Afghanistan Human Rights Commission through Zan International Model United Nations 2018. She then worked as a librarian with visually impaired students/community of Kabul Blinds School through the Afghan Financial Assistance Fund from 2020 to August 2021. Bahara is a current intern with Afghanistan Mission in the United Nations, Global Friends of Afghanistan Organization and Colombia Political Union.
