DIVERSITY | Offering a place for everyone
02 October 2008
Afghan American Gives Back to His Family’s Homeland
Joseph Osman rejected corporate life for humanitarian work
Washington – Joseph David Osman has packed a lot of accomplishments into his 25 years, and he credits much of it to his Afghan father’s unyielding, hardworking influence.
Osman excelled in his high school class, graduated from college in three years, earned his master’s degree in business administration (MBA) and landed a job at Chevron Corporation.
But the corporate life turned out not to be his calling, and Osman soon found himself back in his father’s homeland helping to alleviate the deep poverty he found there.
FROM AFGHANISTAN TO KENTUCKY
Osman said his parents left Afghanistan in 1982 after his father had been arrested and interrogated during the Soviet invasion. Ghafar Osman, his wife – then pregnant with Joseph – and their four children hiked three days through the mountains into Pakistan and eventually made their way to Hawaii. Joseph was born there and given an American name to honor his new home.
His father, who had been a Fulbright scholar, worked as a dishwasher for $4 an hour to support the family while he earned a master’s degree at the University of Hawaii.
In 1991, the family moved to Louisville, Kentucky, where Ghafar worked on the expansion of the city’s airport. Joseph Osman remembers his first years in Louisville as a financially difficult time. “We had six people in a two-bedroom apartment,” he recalled. “We couldn’t afford books or insurance.”
And Osman was a handful. “I was an F student in elementary and middle school,” he said. “I got in trouble a lot. I was trying to fit in, so I made a lot of jokes and tried to get attention.”
A FATHER’S EXAMPLE
Osman wanted badly to play basketball, but his father wouldn’t allow him to join the school team. “My older brother had played ball and let his grades slip. So my father said no sports for me - he wanted me to focus on my education.”
Distressed at his son’s misbehavior and bad grades, Ghafar Osman finally sat the boy down and talked to him about his life. “He told me what my life could be like if I didn’t straighten out,” said Osman. “I knew I had to start taking myself seriously, or no one else ever would. So I determined to do well in school and play basketball, and my first semester in high school I got straight A’s.”
When Osman was in 11th grade, his father died of hepatitis contracted from a tainted blood transfusion he had received in Kabul, Afghanistan. “I was finally making my father proud, and it was so hard not to have him see me finish and keep doing well,” said Osman. But Ghafar’s influence continues to this day, and his son went on to become one of 10 valedictorians of his graduating class.
In college, Osman pushed himself, piling on the credit hours and graduating with a degree in business and finance in three years. He then went on to earn his MBA at the University of Louisville. After graduation, he was hired by Chevron. But Osman soon realized that life in an office was not what he had envisioned for himself.
BACK TO AFGHANISTAN
Osman’s language skills - he is fluent in Pashto - soon landed him a job with the Central Asia Development Group, a nongovernmental organization that does relief work in Afghanistan. He traveled to Uruzgan province, to the town of Tarin Kowt, where he supervised work on roads and a canal to bring clean drinking water to the villagers. On his own, he arranged clothing drives.
“I lived in a mud hut, no electricity, no plumbing, just like everyone else,” says Osman. “My parents raised me so well, keeping my culture intact, that I knew how to behave over there.” Over the next three years, Osman traveled to more than 20 countries in Europe and Asia.
Osman went on to attend the University of Wisconsin Law School and plans to continue his philanthropic work. He also has launched his own consulting company, JOz Life Solutions, which specializes in the training and development of individuals and organizations. Like his humanitarian efforts, JOz Life is intended to make a difference.
“I love helping people,” he said. “Nobody is going to remember what you own, but they will always remember how you helped, gave, and made them feel.”
