Dr Nooralhaq Nasimi has been awarded the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws Honoris Causa of the University of London by Royal Holloway, recognising his work as Founder and Director of the Afghanistan and Central Asian Association (ACAA). He attended a graduation ceremony for the School of Law and Social Sciences at the University on Wednesday 17 July.
Born and growing up in Afghanistan, Dr Nasimi achieved an MA in Law and a PhD in Political Science from Mechnikov National University in Odesa, Ukraine. He, his wife and three children then fled Afghanistan in 1999, after the Taliban came to power, claiming asylum in the United Kingdom.
Dr Nasimi went on to study English at Lewisham College in 2000, founding the ACAA shortly after arriving in the UK. The ACAA began as a community group and evolved into a charity – now based in Feltham – designed to support refugees. It offers services such as language support, legal aid, a women's educational project and supplementary education programmes for child refugees.
The ACAA has since collaborated with academics and students at Royal Holloway in numerous research projects. ACAA was on the frontline of the UK response when the crisis in Afghanistan unfolded in 2021, with thousands of people seeking advice in relation to evacuating their families. In 2018 he accepted the Queens Award for Voluntary Service and in 2023 he was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the New Year Honours list for services to refugees.