It was a video footage of the crowded lanes of Old Delhi which has brought Afghan national Moska Najib within striking distance of landing the ‘Best Jobs in the World’.
Najib,29, has been living in the country for over 20 years after having moved in here with her parents and two elder sisters, due to the internal strife in her homeland.
Currently working as a documentary filmmaker, she jumped at the opportunity to apply for Australia Tourism’s ‘Best Jobs in the World’ to live as a lifestyle photographer in Melbourne for six months, with a salary of over $100,000.
“It’s quite challenging for Afghan nationals to apply for international contests as the opportunities are quite limited for us and since this was a contest “open for all nationalities”, I seized the opportunity,” she said.
Najib’s 30 second video spot depicting the images captured during a rickshaw ride through the labyrinthine alleyways of Old Delhi, which was culled out from over 600,000 entries,helped her join a select club of 150 competitors. She was in the top 25 of her category of ‘lifestyle photographer’, with other jobs being ‘outback adventurer’ and ‘taste master’.
More significantly, Najib is the only person from the war-ravaged South Asian nation to join the elite list.
“We shared some posters on the Facebook page enquiring whether members would like to endorse and the next thing we know, messages with photo attachments showing support from Afghanistan, India, UK, Netherlands, US, Tajikistan, Turkey and many other places were sent,” she said.
In the next round, Najib has to get endorsements on why she is the best candidate for the job. Hence, the young Afghan has decided that the best way to drum up support would be to utilise the power of the social media. And the campaign has elicited a tremendous response with photographs pouring in from Tajikistan in Central Asia to Peshawar in Pakistan and all the way up to New Orleans in the US, endorsing their support for Najib.