Razia Jan, who reached out from the South Shore to build a school for Afghan girls, dies at 81

Boston Globe

3 days ago

'We have educated thousands of girls who are now teaching their siblings and children to read and write,'
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Ms. Jan, who became a US citizen after moving to Boston in 1970 to further her own studies, died of congestive heart failure July 20 at home in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
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She was 81 and formerly lived for many years in Marshfield, where more than two decades ago she conceived the idea of returning to Afghanistan to create a better future for girls and women.
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'Building a foundation of lasting change for a country — that's the big picture for all of us,' said
Ms. Jan greeted students outside their school in Kabul.
Beth Murphy
In pursuing her goals, Alberto said, Ms. Jan never gave up, whether she was raising money, seeking support from Afghan village elders, or persuading fathers to let their daughters attend school, which had been forbidden in the late-1990s, when the Taliban controlled the country.
'She just was relentless,' said Alberto, who added that it seemed as if Ms. Jan was incapable of hearing anything other than 'yes.'
If a village official refused an initial request, 'she would say, 'I will bide my time and ask again,' ' Alberto said. 'She did not take no for an answer.'
And when Ms. Jan faced obstacles building a school and expanding its student population, she remained endlessly optimistic.
'I saw her say 'yes' so many times when maybe another person would say 'no,' ' said
Rather than set aside plans, Quigley added, Ms. Jan would say: ' 'This is going to be hard to do — we can do this.' Any kind of roadblock that came along would not deter her at all. She would find a way around it.'
'She was really a powerhouse,' said
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In Afghanistan, where those who oppose letting girls be educated have burned other girls' schools and poisoned students, Ms. Jan and the institution she founded were beacons for a better future, her friends said.
'Razia was hope personified, and I think that's her biggest legacy,' said
'She cared so much about the girls and their futures, and about the teachers and their families,' Murphy said. 'She has genuinely altered the lives of generations of people in Afghanistan. It's so remarkable.'
Ms. Jan was born on June 5, 1944, in Quetta, which has since then become part of Pakistan, and grew up there and in Kabul. She was the youngest of five siblings, including a half-brother from the first marriage of her mother, Zainab Sardar.
Her father, Sardar Ali Asghar Mohammed Zai, was from a prosperous extended family that owned agricultural lands and lived together in a compound.
After graduating from a women's college with bachelor's and master's degrees in early childhood education, Ms. Jan followed one of her brothers to the United States. He was at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
She studied at Radcliffe College and what is now Lesley University before moving to Marshfield, where she raised her son, Lars, as a single mother.
With Jan's Original Designs, she made clothes that she sold along the Eastern seaboard. Then she opened Razia's Tailors and Cleaners in Duxbury.
After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, she made hundreds of fleece quilts with American flags and other designs and donated them to relief efforts. She also made large quilts bearing images and descriptions of those killed in the attacks.
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A few years later,
'My mom's vision was, 'If I can educate a girl for a day, I'll educate a girl for a day,' ' said her son, Lars, who lives in Los Angeles. 'She believed in the cycle of education: the more that you can educate a girl, the more likely that she's going to be able to transmit that to her own children, and to her sisters and brothers.'
Ms. Jan spoke several languages, a legacy of her youth, which helped her negotiate with all the people whose approvals she needed for her school.
Her effort to create the school was inspired partly by her mother, whose generation didn't have the educational opportunities Ms. Jan enjoyed. She also drew inspiration from time she spent in Los Angeles with her only grandchild, Esme, when she was the same age as girls who attend the Zabuli Education Center.
'She poured such depth of love and attention and care on Esme,' said Mia Barron, Ms. Jan's daughter-in-law. 'They just loved being beside each other.'
A celebration of life will be announced for Ms. Jan, who in addition to her son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter, leaves two brothers, Ashraf of Alexandra, Va., and Assif of Islamabad, Pakistan.
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Ms. Jan,
'The tenacity of Afghan girls is the reason I remain optimistic,' she wrote near the end of her Globe essay, published just after the Taliban seized power. 'Now is not the time to surrender to despair. I will continue to educate girls, even if we are presented with new obstacles; we will make concessions in exchange for safety in education. We are resolute in the belief that education is the key to peaceful change, even when progress feels slow.'
Additional challenges would surely appear, she added, but 'what is easy and what is worthy are often not the same. I believe in the power of girls, just as I believe in the future of Afghanistan.'
Bryan Marquard can be reached at