Marwa Doost

Marwa Doost ('21) is a first-generation Afghan American majoring in English with a minor in Global Poverty and Practice. Throughout her educational career, Marwa has seen firsthand how the U.S. government commercializes diversity, yet falls short of providing adequate educational resources to support low-income students in their education. Instead, the government creates policy largely catering to the desires of the urban middle class. Marwa is passionate about working with policy makers to effectively prioritize the academic needs of minority communities when repatriating immigrants, refugees and international students into educational programs that empower them.

At UC Berkeley, Marwa has excelled in a variety of programs focused on achieving educational equity. As a previous congressional intern, Marwa dedicated herself to researching and drafting briefs on education policies that ensure equal access to education for marginalized communities. It is this research that allowed her to later collaborate with the largest international development NGO, Building Resources Across Communities, to advocate for the establishment of educational campaigns and curriculum that promote career-readiness for female students across South Asia.

With the support of the UCDC program and CCDE stipend, Marwa now strives to serve American families in their pursuit of an education while also pursuing her career interests in education legislation and policy reform. Marwa is dedicated to proposing recommendations to local and national committees on ways to better lift up people of color, and their voices, in educational institutions. Marwa hopes that her experience at UCDC will establish the foundations for her ultimate career goal of restructuring educational systems domestically and in countries abroad, such as in her homeland Afghanistan.