When Kabul fell on August 15, 2021, Manizha Azizi’s life in Ellicott City, Maryland turned upside down. She lives in Ellicott City with her husband, also Afghan-American, and their four children. The news of Kabul’s fall took her back to fleeing Afghanistan with her family on foot when she was five years old. “I remember the journey with such vivid detail,” says Manizha Azizi. “It’s like pictures in my head. I close my eyes and I can still see them.” 

For the past three weeks, Manizha has been spending 12 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, connecting with recently resettled Afghan families, learning their individual needs, and hand-gathering and delivering items. The crisis has overtaken her life, but Manizha is committed. If she can offer a positive memory amid even one family’s journey through the trauma of displacement, she says it is worth it.