How Vanessa Alexander created a network to rescue women from the Taliban

"It started only because here in Newcastle, eight years ago, I gave a cot to a refugee, to Homaira. I gave her that cot and we became friends," Vanessa Alexander says.

Alexander, a Newcastle-based Netflix and Hulu screenwriter, is originally from the US and has lived all over the world. On International Women's Day in March, Newcastle Lord Mayor Nuatali Nelmes awarded her the key to the city for her humanitarian work during the pandemic: While working and also homeschooling her children, Alexander pooled her networks and resources to help hundreds of Afghani refugees flee their country in 2021 as the Taliban took over.

It's not the "Novocastrian Mum Volunteers" story you might expect.

Alexander's story begins innocently enough: "I went to ukulele orchestra and I saw Homaira. She showed me a video of her sister's house [in Afghanistan] burning down and she also showed me the photo of her uncle's house who had been bombed, and her dead uncle. I have four sisters and I just thought 'oh my god, if they were my sisters I'd just be going insane'. I had this horrible feeling she'd be telling me her sisters were dead."

Homaira was worried her unmarried sisters would be forced into marriage.

After the ukulele orchestra session, Alexander went home and immediately called all her own sisters.

"I was like 'pony up, come on, we can fly the unmarried sisters to India'," she says.

Alexander and her sisters paid $1600 a person to send the Homaira's sisters to India.

"Three of us put in for two people. My mom was like 'you can't leave the mom behind, the mom has to go too.' So mom put in the money for her. Then some of the doctors at the ukulele orchestra, they asked if they could do things," Alexander says.

Spoiler alert, Homaira's mother, Shafiqa now lives in Newcastle, and is currently involved in the Social Fabric: Afghan-Australian Stories in Thread exhibition at the Newcastle Library. But at that time she was the chair of the Kabul's women's council, meaning Homaira's family was particularly at risk for their political views in Afghanistan.

Alexander contacted friends she had all over the world for support. Many worked in the television industry including writers Michael Hirst, Judi McCrossin and Michelle Offen, actor Claudia Karvan, director Kate Dennis and plenty more.

The ukulele orchestra session was on Thursday, August 12, 2021. By August 15, Alexander had opened a bank account and had the funds to fly 22 people to India.

But on August 15, Kabul fell to the Taliban, and Alexander's group realised India was out of the question. Refugees would need to get out of Afghanistan via land.

Alexander's friend, Alissa Coons, also a writer, met Alexander through their PhD program. Coons organised a team of people to write visa applications with basic clerical assistance and English language proofreading. Coons, too, is from the US; she was familiar with the challenge of applying for a visa to Australia.

"It's pretty much a 34-page application regardless of what you're applying for," Coons says.

Coons' parents were once posted in Afghanistan.

"The story of what Afghan women had been through and achieved in the last 20 years and the terrible situation that they're in, it felt hugely important to try to do something," Coons says.

Lord Mayor Nelmes wrote Alexander a letter of support, which helped her get introductions to MPs.

Alexander's networks and group chats can't be overstated. She will happily show you her phone full of threads of messages, skilled people working together, raising money and using expertise to get people out of Afghanistan.

They took the information about Shafiqa and the letter from Nelmes and were eventually backed by the then Minister for Foreign Affairs senator Marise Payne. Alexander also connected with Susan Hutchinson, a woman's activist in Canberra.

While the emergency visas were being processed, the situation was escalating. On August 26 the Islamic State took responsibility for a suicide bomb at the Kabul airport - Alexander's refugee group was hiding in the vicinity at the time.

Alexander's supporters pitched in more money to pay someone on the ground in Afghanistan they could trust, a fixer and former British military police officer who had set up his own security company. He let Alexander's 22 refugees stay in a safe house. Here they met up with another woman, an unmarried doctor and her two brothers, who had ties to Australia and Alexander. The group became 25.

The 25 received their emergency visas and joined the fixer with 75 other Afghanis. He planned to take them through Taliban checkpoints and to the Torkham, Pakistan, border crossing, due east of Kabul.

On August 30 they left their safe house for the border. On August 31 they reached the checkpoint. Unfortunately, none of the group had the documents they needed to get into Pakistan, despite the Australian emergency visas.

Their fixer was taken to jail. The other 75 didn't have emergency visas, and they were taken away as well. Alexander isn't sure what happened to them.

"It's very difficult to cope with a country in that level of chaos. It turned out that [their fixer] wasn't that helpful. He didn't know they couldn't get through the Pakistan gate," Alexander says.

Then all 25 had to wait for two nights outside in no man's land. Her group spent two days and two nights between the last Taliban checkpoint and the Pakistani gate with eight children under eight. They needed a way to get into Pakistan.

Alexander, always resourceful, had an ex-boyfriend in New Zealand who miraculously connected her with a new man on the ground named Darwish Ahmadzai.

Ahmadzai was extremely instrumental. He spoke five languages, he was trustworthy and incredibly informed. Before he helped the group at the border, he had hidden others in the lead-up.

"He was like the COO of a giant transport company that delivered to the army. He had sent stuff across the Torkham border from Pakistan," Alexander says. "There was nothing he couldn't figure out with a few hours - he speaks Pashto, the Taliban language."

Nobody wanted to illegally truck people over the border, and with Ahmadzai's transportation background, he knew how could do it in the safest way. He and Alexander spoke every day and became friends.

"Darwish would give you information and access to people. You can't go anywhere as woman by yourself; he could find trustable people who would transport you to the border as a woman and orphan. He understood the government processes, what were their visas being issued," Alexander says.

Ahmadzai heard they were having trouble at the checkpoint. He phoned Alexander; he knew they were missing paperwork. He becames the new fixer for the 25 refugees.

On September 2 Ahmadzai liased with Hutchinson, who had a contact at Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, (DFAT) in Pakistan. Together they were able to get the paperwork that allowed the group into Pakistan. At last, the 25 got across the border.

The 25 went into refugee care with the Australian government and an air force flight flew them to Darwin. From there they made it to the Hunter Region. Ahmadzai and his family would join them later, as would several others Alexander worked with.

Alexander's sisters went on to get another 45 out, to Ireland and Brazil.

"The ones I am the most connected to are the 36 people that I brought to Australia," Alexander says.

Ahmadzai and Hutchinson went on to assist 300 more people including many women's rights activists.

"I had really good connection in that area, a lot of friends on both sides of the border," Ahmadzai says, when he reflects on his efforts.

He explained that The Taliban don't want anyone to leave and their focus was on women.

"I had a friends and family members; I used them to arrange transport. I had friends on the Pakistan side to take them from Pakistan. Usually they had the approval to Australia, to UK, some of them to Canada," Ahmadzai says.

As safe and sunny Newcastle locked down, Alexander and her networks worked collectively and quietly behind the scene. Others, like Ahmadzai and Homaira's family, experienced a different reality.

When Ahmadzai reflects on everything, he doesn't feel he did anything brave. He says what he did was just good management during hard times.

"To be honest, I worked for a long time with security forces. They are usually involved with dangerous things. I don't feel like we were brave people. If you don't have options, I like to help someone. That's the human nature," he says.

In early 2022 Ahmadzai arrived in Dungog with his wife Shagufa and children Ahmad Sohail, Madina, Ahmad Zia, and Yasar. He was supported by Talent Beyond Boundaries, an organisation that matches skilled refugees with companies in need of their skills. He now works at a Australian Sustainable Timber. He and his family are enjoying their new life in Australia

"The kids they are having a good future, for security and for safety they don't worry about anything. You have freedom of speaking thoughts, a lot of opportunity. It's a great life. I'm really happy to be here," he says.

Like Alexander, he is still helping others get out of Afghanistan. He has friends and family waiting for visa approvals.

Alexander's pleased she's succeeded so far, even though there were times of doubt and worry.

"I feel like I know lots of smart people, and I have lots of dumb courage," she says.