Running in Afghanistan was an act of defiance. Now in Canada, I run to show others they can

Atefa Rahimi · for CBC First Person

· Posted: May 21, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 10 minutes ago

This First Person file is the acquisition of Atefa Rahimi, who moved from Afghanistan to Saskatoon. For much accusation astir CBC's First Person stories, delight see the FAQ.

It was still dark erstwhile my small sister and I got up astatine 2 a.m. to bid earlier everyone other successful Kabul woke up. I felt similar I was touching the entity arsenic we ran done the beautiful, towering hills that surrounded our city.

We were bare and tired, but I didn't care. I felt alive. 

Running has filled maine with joyousness and vigor done the darkest parts of my life, archetypal successful Afghanistan and present successful Canada.

I was lone 14 erstwhile my parent died. I had nary prime but to go a parent fig to my 4 younger siblings. I was a child, but I stepped into an adult's role. It was my occupation to take care of my siblings, our location successful Kabul and everything other that came with it. It felt similar beingness was collapsing connected me. 

Through each that pain, athletics helped maine survive. I was introduced to kung fu successful 2017, and a twelvemonth later, joined a moving squad successful the city. My household hadn't supported maine successful either activity. I'd had to combat with my relatives and a nine astir maine that didn't judge that girls should bash sports. 

There was nary 1 I could look astatine — successful my family, my assemblage oregon beyond — and say, "She did it, truthful I tin too." I had to go that person. 

I became the archetypal pistillate successful my full household and extended relatives to go an athlete. There wasn't a azygous time erstwhile it was easy. But slowly, thing started to change. My cousins started doing sports. Their families began to let it, small by little, due to the fact that they saw maine doing it first.

In a spot wherever I had ne'er adjacent seen a pistillate thrust a bicycle, wherever the thought of a miss moving done the streets was unthinkable, I was breaking done walls. 

I ran my archetypal marathon successful 2019 successful Afghanistan, which drew runners — both male and female — from each implicit the world. That time volition ever enactment with me. It wasn't conscionable astir the race. It was a awesome of everything I had flooded — the fear, the judgment, the loneliness. Every measurement I took was a measurement toward the idiosyncratic I wanted to become. The extremity of that marathon wasn't conscionable a decorativeness line. It was the opening of thing powerful. It was healing. It was impervious that adjacent erstwhile the satellite tries to soundlessness you, you tin inactive find your voice. 

I wasn't conscionable doing 1 sport. At 1 point, I was doing kung fu, moving and kickboxing, each portion raising 4 children, managing a household and facing changeless disapproval and pressure. Imagine doing that successful a spot similar Afghanistan, wherever girls weren't adjacent expected to beryllium extracurricular alone. 

Everything changed 2 years aboriginal with the return of the Taliban in 2021. 

Girls were banned from going to schoolhouse and university. With videos of myself and my kung fu squad retired successful the world, we were terrified we would beryllium targeted. 

My squad and our household members escaped with the assistance of the 30 Birds Foundation, which helped hundreds of Afghan women and girls travel to Canada. They didn't conscionable assistance america get retired — they helped america commencement again. They've continued to enactment us in each imaginable way.  

When I moved to Canada, I thought things would get better. I believed I was yet escaped — escaped to tally extracurricular without fearfulness and unrecorded without threats.

In galore ways, I was. There was safety. There were opportunities. 

What I didn't expect was that beingness present would bring a antithetic benignant of situation — 1 that wasn't louder, but heavier. | recovered myself unsocial successful a caller country, not knowing the language, carrying the value of trauma, grief and fear. I had nary 1 to thin on, and the soundlessness of that loneliness was its ain benignant of pain.

I tried to support going, joining the Saskatoon Track and Field Club and grooming for astir 2 years. But aft I moved distant from Saskatoon for university, thing shifted. The grief and symptom of the caller years over losing my parent and leaving my state caught up to me. 

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I didn't person that wide extremity of being a relation exemplary to different pistillate athletes that I erstwhile held adjacent successful Afghanistan. The occurrence I carried for truthful agelong started to dim. I was inactive running, inactive showing up, but it didn't consciousness the same. 

Then, successful November 2024, I joined a programme called the Wingspan Summit, organized by the 30 Birds Foundation, which brought unneurotic different Afghan women and girls. 

That changed everything. 

Surrounded by radical with almighty stories who reminded maine of my ain strength, I felt my spark return. That occurrence successful my bosom — the 1 that kept maine live done the darkest moments — came backmost to life.

Now, erstwhile I run, I'm not conscionable moving for myself. I'm moving for the small miss I was — the 1 who grew up excessively fast, who held a household unneurotic portion chasing intolerable dreams. I'm moving for each miss successful Afghanistan who is inactive warring done the aforesaid darkness. 

I'm moving for each pistillate successful the satellite who is told she can't. I tally due to the fact that I can, and due to the fact that I indispensable — until they tin too.

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