Footsteps Faces of the Future Summer 2016 | Page 4

Architecture
Student Wants
to Design CAI
School
Mushtari

M

ahbuba Qurbonalieva, director
of CAI-Tajikistan, recalls her first
meeting with Soibegim Sharipova.
“She came into our office and told us that
she is a single mother of four children. Her
husband passed away several years ago and
she had to bring up her children all alone.”
Her eldest daughter was married and her
husband was not allowing her to study. Her
son and two younger daughters were all
students, but Soibegim struggled to pay the
tuition fees. She thought one of the girls might
have to drop out.
Her youngest daughter, Mushtari, was
preparing herself at the time to say goodbye
to her family and travel to Russia to find a job
and send money home.
Luckily, her mother’s last-ditch effort to
seek out help paid off. She had seen Mahbuba
being interviewed on television and decided to reach out. After meeting Mushtari’s
mother and reviewing their application, CAITajikistan awarded Mushtari a scholarship.
“Central Asia Institute saved my life,” said
Mushtari. “I will try to be the best student of
my group and [department], so that CAI will
never regret that they have financed my study.”
Mushtari has made true on that promise.
As one of only three women in the 29-person architecture program at Tajik Technical
University in Dushanbe, she is breaking into
this traditionally male-dominated field.
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“There are not many girls,” she tells CAI.
“Parents want their sons to be architects, not
their daughters. It is a difficult program and
most girls do not want it to be that hard. Why
would they if they will just get married? They
would rather do something easy.”
But this kind of pioneering attitude runs in
Mushtari’s family – her mother is an engineer
and her sister is studying to be a computer
engineer at the Moscow Institute of Physics
and Technology.
Though the engineering gene seems to run
in the family, Mushtari says her favorite classes
are drawing and design.
“I like to draw things I’ve seen… This is
why I want to travel and see architecture in
other countries. I want to use those ideas in
my designs.”
“I want to design a school for Central Asia
Institute when I graduate,” says Mushtari
already thinking of the future despite only
being a third-year student.
“But first I want to get a Master’s degree
because four years of school is not enough
to learn everything I need to learn,” she
continued.
We look forward to the day when CAI
can send children to school in a building
designed by one of our very own scholarship students. n

CENTRAL ASIA INSTITUTE