n Pakistan in 1978, around the time the Soviet Union invaded the area, Sharmen Obaid-Chinoy was born. She grew up in a different world than that of which her parents reminisced about. Even as a young girl she showed qualities differing from the mass population, these differences helped her to become a very influential woman. Obaid-Chinoy shared a personal anecdote from when she was a young girl. She shared that one of the first times she remembers being very angry about the situation in Pakistan was on her ride to school. She recalled seeing a young girl, almost a “reflection of [her]self”, instead of a school uniform she was shoeless and begging for money. Chinoy asked herself why she was in the car headed to school and not a beggar at a stoplight. Chinoy accredits this instance to the moment she started asking the tough questions that people didn't want to answer.…show more content… At the age of 17 she had been writing for a local paper and received her first investigative article assignment about exposing bullies in the schools. Although there were demeaning repercussions this did not hamper her spirit. When her father denied her a college education in the United States she responded with a hunger strike and he eventually gave in, allowing her to make the move. These two instances alone show Obaid-Chinoy’s perseverance and drive to change things. While attending Smith College, after the devastation of 9/11, she realized her calling was to bring stories from her part of the world to our part of the world. She decided upon visual journalism, more colloquially known as a documentary film
