3. Biodata:

Mrs. Lael Mohib Lael Adams hails from Asheville, N.C. where she was born 1987. She went to college in Boston. She had done her master’s thesis on Central and Southeast Asia and got a four-month summer internship in the Afghan Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development. She had earned her master’s degree from Boston University in international relations and a bachelor’s in communication and media studies from Mary Baldwin College.



She and her later husband, Hamdullah Mohib, met in Afghanistan through mutual friends. Lael converted to Islam when she married Hamdullah in London. They were there for two years while her husband worked toward his Ph.D. from Brunel University, which awarded him a research scholarship to pursue his studies.

Hamdullah, an Afghan native, first came to England as a teenager, having spent years in refugee camps in Peshawar, Pakistan — first to escape the Russian occupation of Afghanistan and later Taliban rule.

His family scraped enough money to send Hamdullah, the youngest of 11 children, to study in England, where he became active among the local Afghan community. He founded the largest Afghan diaspora youth association in Europe, the Afghan Students Association of the UK. He also founded and served as board chairman of the Afghan Professionals Network (APN). Within APN, he initiated community service programming to support special needs orphans in Kabul, and to recognize the achievements of Afghan women — two issues that resonate personally with Lael.



There, he used his tech savvy to become director of information technology at the American University of Afghanistan; at the time, Lael was also working in the country at the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development.

Lael started her own foundation, the Enabled Children Initiative, which advocates for Afghan orphans with special needs. She is waiting on 501C nonprofit status to have the foundation officially established here in the U.S.

She joined BBC Media Action’s Afghanistan team, where she worked on educational and media development programs. She later became chief of staff at the American University of Afghanistan shortly before coming to Washington with her husband who was appointed Ambassador in U.S.A.

The couple has two children (daughter, son)