Mohammad Nasib, multi-award winning managing director of the Welfare Association for the Development of Afghanistan and 1992 SRU graduate, has been named recipient of the University's first Distinguished International Alumni Award.

Since August 2002, Nasib has had overall responsibility for managing both the strategic and operational activities of WADAN, an indigenous, non-profit, non-governmental organization which has a primary focus of civic education in peace building, democracy and human rights, particularly at the grassroots level in rural areas where democracy is introduced as a system compatible with traditional values. WADAN has established therapeutic drug rehabilitation centers in Paktia, Kandahar and Helmand provinces and has drop-in centers in Logar and Ghazni for out-reach work to drug addicts and communities.

In Nangarhar and Laghman provinces, WADAN has organized community based non-formal schools to provide primary education for those who have been deprived of educational opportunities.

As the International Republican Institute's first country program coordinator for Afghanistan, Nasib designed and implemented civic education programs, wrote political analysis reports and facilitated communication between IRI and the relevant departments of the Transitional Islamic Government of Afghanistan. Based in Islamabad and later in Kabul, he coordinated the World Bank's Afghanistan Watching Brief Project that initiated various development projects during and following the Taliban's departure from government. He worked for the United Nations Drug Control Program for almost eight years. In addition to strategic and operational tasks, he monitored the UNDCP annual opium survey in the eastern zone and negotiated with both local authorities and the target communities regarding drug control initiatives.

Nasib was born in Kodikhel village, Shirzad district -- near Tora Bora -- in Nangarhar province. His early education was at the village school where children sat on the ground to study and did their written work in the sand. After the Soviet invasion, his family migrated to Peshawar, Pakistan, where he worked for the NGO community. He cam to the U.S. for higher education as a Weber Scholar and in 1992 graduated summa cum laude from Slippery Rock University with a bachelor of science in public administration and international comparative politics.

In 1999, he received his master of business administration from Preston University in Pakistan. Last August, he participated in the first Stanford Summer Fellows in Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law Program at the Center for Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law, Stanford Institute for International Studies at Stanford University.

The National Endowment for Democracy awarded Nasib its 2005 Democracy Award at a U.S. Senate ceremony. "The Honorable Ghazi Mir Bacha Kahn Medal," one of Afghanistan's highest honors, was awarded on May 14 for WADAN's work in grassroots democracy by President Karzai and was presented by his Majesty, Mohammad Zahir Shah, father of the nation.