Samina Khattak is a psychiatrist who works for the Cook County Health system in Chicago, where she treats patients with mental health and substance abuse issues. She has lived in the Chicago area for 20 years. She is originally from Pakistan, where much of her family still resides. Her great uncle, Ghaffar Khan, worked alongside Mohandas Gandhi in the struggle to free south Asia from British rule. His nickname was the Frontier Gandhi. Dr. Khattak’s father, Jehanzeb Niaz, spent time in prison as a teenager for his acts of nonviolent civil disobedience against the British. More recently, her family helped start a school in Peshawar, Pakistan, for Pakistani and Afghani refugee children who would otherwise not get an education. The name of the school is Sabawoon, which means ‘the dawn’ in the Pashtu language.

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT MY INTERVIEW WITH SAMINA KHATTAK, MD by Cindy Kamp:

“A few people accomplish big things  . . . most of us accomplish small things and they make a difference in the world.”  – Samina Khattak

There is a kindness and a gentleness in Samina Khattak’s voice that belies the core of steel from which she has been forged. She was born and raised in Peshawar, Pakistan, and has lived in the US for over 20 years. Her great uncle, Ghaffar Khan, also known as the ‘Frontier Gandhi,’ worked tirelessly to rid south Asia of British rule. He lived to be 90 years old and spent almost 30 of those years in prison.

One of his closest allies was Mohandas Gandhi. Together they stood firm on their insistence that only nonviolent methods of civil disobedience be used by their supporters.  Googling ‘Frontier Gandhi’ brings up many photos of the two men working and talking together, and the photos reveal the warm friendship that they shared.

Samina’s father, Jehanzeb Niaz, was still a teenager when he was jailed for his acts of civil disobedience against the British.  In our discussion she reflects on what her father learned while in prison – more in fact, she says, than what he learned in school.  Her father later obtained a Master’s degree in the U.S. and worked as a college professor for many years in Pakistan.

Her own life has been filled with challenging work as a psychiatrist in the Cook County public health system in Chicago. As she discusses her work, she stresses the importance of the act of listening to her patients, and the healing that can come from attending closely to their needs and struggles. She has lived away from her own family for many years, including three years in a rural part of Missouri during 2001, and she shares the difficulties of being a Pakistani Muslim immigrant living in America immediately after September 11.

During our conversation, Samina also discusses the work that her family and friends are doing at a school that they helped establish in Peshawar, Pakistan. The school is called Sabawoon which in the Pashto language means ‘the dawn.’ The students at the school are Afghani refugee children and Pakistani children from low income families. These children would otherwise not receive an education, and would be working before their teenage years making bricks or carpets, or working in markets or as domestics. Currently, there are over 100 girls and boys enrolled at Sabawoon.

In terms of her values, Samina stresses the role that her faith and her religious background as a Muslim have played in her life. She also believes firmly that ‘small is beautiful’, and this is how she sees her own life and the work being done at the Sabawoon School. Perhaps by comparison with the example of her father and great uncle, her own contributions — in her eyes — seem small. By almost any other standard, however, her accomplishments are significant, and are indeed “making a difference in the world”.

DATE RECORDED: 12/14/14

MUSIC: Thingamajig by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/…)
Artist: http://audionautix.com/

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