Vancouver Island’s international school community is mourning the death of Roshan Thomas, who was screening potential students in Afghanistan when she was shot and killed along with eight others on Thursday.
The optometrist was a champion of education who worked hard to bring students to Metchosin’s Pearson College — the same school her own children attended — as well as other United World College campuses. She also founded a school for Afghan children in Kabul, after providing eye care at Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan.
“It’s gut-wrenchingly sad,” said David Hawley, Pearson’s head of college. “She was incredibly warm and curious and giving. Totally selfless.”
The Thomas family’s connection with Pearson College began when Roshan and her husband Roger’s eldest son, Karim, was admitted in 1996 — the same year Pearson admitted two Afghan students for the first time.
Their daughter, Samira, followed, graduating in 2003. Their youngest daughter, Rishma, attended another United World College in Wales.
The connection reached as far as refugee camps where Roshan and Roger, an opthamologist, worked in the 1990s. One of Karim’s Pearson classmates lived in those camps and when he visited his parents one summer, he introduced them.
At the same time, Roshan was building relationships with widowed mothers she met there, Karim said Friday from Vancouver.
“She would ask them, ‘What is it we can do for you?’ Their answer, invariably was education for their children,” Karim said.
“There was such a strong desire for education amongst all of these people she spoke to that she said, you know, we really have to do something. There’s a thirst.”
After graduating, dozens of Pearson alumni volunteered as teachers at the Sparks Academy in Kabul that Roshan founded.
Roshan also promoted United World College scholarship programs, interviewing potential students abroad and guiding the often complicated process of bringing them to Canada.
“She fought valiantly for such things as visa applications for the students, which is very, very hard because the Canadian Embassy does not have a presence in Afghanistan,” Hawley said.
It often meant travelling to different countries and working through heavy red tape for students in war-torn countries who didn’t have passports or even birth certificates.
Karim, 32, said he believed his mother’s passion for education began with wanting her own children to have the best education possible.
“I think she married that interest with the beliefs of her [Ismaili] faith, which taught her that knowledge is meant to be shared, not meant to be kept for one’s pride and benefit,” he said.
He described Roshan as an “incredibly loving” mother whose care extended beyond her family. “She had an incredible heart.”
Hawley said Roshan was committed to pluralism. “One’s beliefs did not get in the way, were neither a barrier nor an attractant. It was really based on human potential and human development. She wanted to make sure that everyone had the opportunity to develop their full potential.”
Another Canadian, Zeenab Kassam, was also killed in the attack. The 37-year-old from Calgary was volunteering as an English teacher at a school funded by the Aga Khan Foundation.
They were killed at the Serena Hotel, long considered one of the safest accommodations in the country. But four teenage gunmen made it past security, entered the hotel restaurant and opened fire. Police killed all four attackers after a three-hour standoff.
The Taliban claimed responsibility.
At the time of the attack, the hotel restaurant was packed with Afghans celebrating the eve of Nowruz, the Persian new year, as well as foreigners who frequent the hotel.
— With files from The Canadian Press
