A Reflection 

My name is Qudsia. My voice has always found its way out, even through the smallest cracks in the walls built around me. When words would not suffice, I painted. When paint felt too silent, I wrote poems in the fluid grace of Persian and the sharp clarity of English, articles that were my quiet protests. When writing felt too still, I stood and spoke, letting my voice fill a room in declamation, a performance of our collective pain and power. Every brushstroke, every metaphor, every raised word was an attempt to express the unexpressed soul of Afghan women.

Yet, I always felt these were separate rooms in a house of resistance. I yearned for a hall that could contain them all, a discipline that could marry the poet’s heart, the artist’s eye, and the orator’s fire into one undeniable force. I found its name: Journalism.

I did not just want to tell stories; I wanted to shout my people’s voice to a world growing deaf to our plight. I wanted to become a journalist not as a profession, but as a mission. This burning desire is what led me to the Amplify Afghan Women Video Journalism course. I arrived not as a blank slate, but as a multi-medium artist seeking the ultimate tool for truth-telling.

The course gave me the architecture my passion needed. I moved beyond the what of my expression to the how and why of ethical, powerful reporting. I learned the critical foundations: what journalism truly is, its various forms and objectives. I learned the sacred mechanics: preparing a report, rigorous research, cross-verifying facts. This was the crucial skeleton. It taught me that my art and poetry were the heart, but journalism required the backbone of integrity and method. It transformed my raw outcry into a focused, potent instrument

The most profound, and painful, lesson came in applying this knowledge. For my final project, I prepared a detailed video report on girls’ education after the Taliban’s ban, a subject that burns in my soul. I researched, I framed shots with the eye of a painter, I wrote a script with the care of a poet, hoping to give the tragedy a narrative that could move the world. I had learned to use the camera not just to show, but to testify

But  unfortunately due to some security problems I couldn't share it. I learned that sometimes, the most important story is the one you cannot publish, and that protecting a human life is the highest journalistic ethic of all. That unreleased report lives in me, a silent testament to the stories waiting in the shadows, a fuel for my resolve.

Yet, this course did not end with that silencing. It armed me for the long fight. It showed me how my diverse arts are not separate, but essential to this craft. My calligraphy’s sense of space informs how I frame a shot. My poetry teaches me about rhythm, metaphor, and emotional resonance in a script. My declamation hones my voiceover delivery, finding the tone that carries both unwavering truth and profound humanity.

So, I move forward with a clearer, sharper purpose. I am a journalist who will paint with light, write with sound, and compose reality with an artist’s integrity and a reporter’s rigor. I will use this lens to capture not just our suffering, but our sublime resilience, the clandestine schools, the art created in secret, the poems whispered from memory. I will find the ways to tell the truths that can be told, and I will hold space in my work for the silence of those that cannot.

To Amplify Afghan Women, you gave me more than skills. You gave me a journalistic conscience and a fortified spirit. You showed me how to channel all my forms of expression into a single, powerful beam of light. You taught me that even when one story must be withheld to protect a life, a thousand others are waiting for their frame, their verse, their moment to be seen and heard.

In conclusion, the world will hear from us. It will be heard through my camera, filtered through my poet’s soul, composed with my artist’s eye, and delivered with the conviction of one who has learned to shout through the silence. I am an Afghan girl, and my journalism has just begun.