A Grassroots Effort to Save Afghan Allies
Jaime Winston BA ’22, Marketing & Communications
If Lark Escobar BS ’06 takes a day off, people could die.
In August 2021, as the United States withdrew after a 20-year presence in Afghanistan and the Taliban seized control, she went to work helping people escape.
As founder of the Fletcher Afghan Evacuation & Resettlement working group (FAER-WG), based at Tufts University, she leads a team of volunteers in preparing documentation for American allies trying to escape the country. The documents are sent on to the U.S. Department of State for review.
Before the withdrawal began, she had helped four families resettle to the United States and was working with a fifth. Today, her list of people who need help is in the thousands.
Handling just one person’s intake and visa application can take eight or more hours, she said.
“I collect all of the threat evidence, I make sure that they’ve got all of the required pieces of their application, I explain the different parts of the application to them, we make sure they’ve got all of their credentials in order,” said Escobar about the process.
FAER-WG is made up of Tufts students, as well as Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology students. Along with collecting documentation, they work to gain government support and raise funds to help evacuees.
The group is part of the #AfghanEvac coalition, a network of over 180 volunteer-based organizations dedicated to helping United States allies flee Afghanistan, and the Evacuate Our Allies Coalition, a legislative advocacy group.
While Escobar’s Weber degree didn’t prepare her for evacuation work, it eventually led her to Afghanistan. At WSU, she learned to teach English. Later she became educated in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies and went on to earn a graduate degree in international education systems and English as a second language. She has taught English in high school and across the world through NATO and the United States military. Over two academic years, she ran a culture and language program for the Afghan National Army, which included integrating women into the Afghan Air Force, designing curriculum and establishing tri-lingual libraries around the country.
Today, she splits her volunteer work with being a full-time graduate student and working as a writing tutor. She recently held an internship for the U.S. Army War College.
Being both a student and volunteer helping evacuees has its dark days.
While studying for a midterm in October 2021, she received evidence of 18 cases of torture and learned that two people on her evacuee list died from a lack of aid. She failed the exam.
Despite the setbacks, government bureaucracy and seemingly endless list of people who need her help, she knows she is making a difference.
Last summer, a family she helped welcomed its ninth child while safely awaiting their chance to come to the United States at a Qatar processing center.
Students who would like to volunteer can contact Escobar at fletcherafghanworkinggroup@
Follow @Fletcherevac on Twitter for updates from the Fletcher Afghan Evacuation & Resettlement working group.