Afghan journalists to speak Tuesday

Javed Hamim Kakar and Zainab Mohammadi ofthe Pajhwok Afghan News in Kabul will speak 7-9 p.m. in the Student Center ballroom. The event is open to the public free of charge.

The journalistswill speak about the country and the stories they and their colleagues cover.

Both journalists became refugees during the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan in 1980.

Kakar is the senior regional and international editor for the news agency. He became a refugee at age 7 and spent his youth in refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan. He landed his first newspaper job in 1994 as a computer operator with Peshawar’s “Wahdat Daily.” During the next 10 years, he worked his way up the ranks, first as a designer, then reporter and finally editor. 

After the United States drove the Taliban out of Kabul in the early 2000s, Kakar returned to his home and took a position in 2004 with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting. Four months later he left the IWPR and accepted a post with PAN, which is, according to its Web site, Afghanistan’s leading independent news agency. 

From the war on terror to politics to sports, Kakar, now a veteran journalist of 16 years, has undertaken a variety of assignments for PAN.

In the 2004 Afghanistan presidential election, he returned to Pakistan and the refugee camps of his youth to cover voting there by the hundreds of thousands of Afghan refugees still inhabiting the camps. Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai presented Kakar with an award for his coverage.

In June 2008 he was in Paris covering the International Conference in Support of Afghanistan, which saw the international community pledge about $20 billion in support of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.  

Kakar, an avid cricket fan, volunteers his media expertise as Advisor and Media Manager for Afghanistan Cricket Board.

Mohammadi joined the Pajhwok Afghan News in 2004 after spending four months with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

Today, as senior reporter for PAN, Mohammadi covers economics, business, water, energy and agriculture.

She spent her early years as a refugee in Iran instead of Pakistan.

She said she comes from a family of journalists and began her career in Iran with a women's magazine, “Sadai Zan,” where she spent three years writing about women's issues.

Stories she’s covered for PAN, which is, according to its Web site, Afghanistan’s leading independent news agency, include the Afghanistan government’s commitment to support women entrepreneurs, the business sector’s desire for a single, unified chamber of commerce, climate change and the effects it has on the crisis-level water shortage affecting the entire country.

In addition to reporting for PAN, Mohammadi is studying law and political science at Kabul University.

The two journalists are coming to Chadron for the Nebraska Collegiate Media Association Conference, which is being hosted by CSC’s student newspaper, The Eagle, on Friday and Saturday, April 23-24. In addition to Tuesday’s presentation and speaking engagements at the conference, they will visit classes at Black Hills State University and Western Nebraska Community College.