Note: You have reached an old Web page, please go to: Speaking.com for the current site

TOPICS:
Journalism
Cross-cultural Issues
Media / Broadcast / Print
Politics
Women's Issues
Social Issues


FEE CATEGORY:
2.5k to 5.0k


    Fariba Nawa, an award-winning Afghan-American journalist, covers a range of issues and specializes in immigrant and Muslim communities in the United States and abroad. She is a correspondent based in the San Francisco Bay Area but frequently travels to the Middle East and South Asia. She lived and reported from Afghanistan from 2002 to 2007, witness to the US-led war against the Taliban and al Qaeda. She has also reported from Iraq, Pakistan, Iran, Egypt and Germany. She has a master's in Middle Eastern studies and journalism and speaks Persian/Farsi and Arabic. She's currently writing a book, a memoir about repatriating to Afghanistan and travelling across the country to document the impact of illicit narcotics in the country. The book is due to be published in fall 2010 by HarperCollins.

    Fariba began writing and getting published in high school but first worked as a daily reporter for ANG Newspapers in the Bay Area for two years, covering crime and criminal justice, then moved to Pakistan to work as a consultant for the United Nations and start a freelance career in 2000. Since then, her work has appeared in the Sunday Times and Sunday Times Magazine of London, Newsday, the San Francisco Chronicle, Mother Jones, The Village Voice, The Christian Science Monitor and many other American and international publications. She also reports for radio, including National Public Radio (NPR). In addition to reporting from Afghanistan, she also worked as a news trainer at Pajhwok, one of the few independent news agencies in Afghanistan, which is now the most renowned outlet providing mainstream international media with reliable news.

    Her most acclaimed work was about the impact of the drug trade on young girls in Afghanistan and the story appeared in magazines worldwide and received the prestigious One World Media award in 2005 in the United Kingdom. She was a nominee for the same award in 2007 for her investigative reporting on corruption in the reconstruction effort in Afghanistan. Her six months of research on the follies of reconstruction among international contractors culminated in a report, Afghanistan, Inc. published by CorpWatch, a journalistic watchdog of corporations. The 30-page report first came out in 2006 but continues to be talked about and used as a source for other reporters and scholars. The New York Times, Washington Post, the BBC, al-Jazeera and other major media have all alluded to the report in their stories about Afghanistan. She received the Project Censored award for Afghanistan, Inc. in 2007.

    Fariba’s essays have been published in two books, March to War and Women for Afghan Women. She's a speaker on Middle East, South Asian, diversity, women’s and media related issues and has participated in talks at the World Affairs Council, major universities and has been interviewed by major television and radio networks.