P I became an immigrant on the worst day of my life. There was no excitement about moving to a new country. No anticipation, no planning, no goodbye parties. There was only grief, fear, and the desperate hope that we would make it out alive. My father had been murdered by members of our own family because of the women’s rights work he and my mother dedicated their lives to. I had been kidnapped. My mother looked at what remained of our life in Pakistan and made the only decision that made sense — she chose me. We fled to the United States and applied for asylum, and I boarded a plane for the very first time not knowing if we would ever feel safe again. That is how my immigrant experience began. Starting over in America as a high school student was one of the most disorienting experiences of my life. Everything was unfamiliar — the language, the culture, the school system, the way people talked to each other in hallways. I was carrying a grief that most of my classmates could not relate to, trying to act like a normal teenager while processing things that were anything but normal. There were days I felt completely invisible, like I was watching everyone else’s life through a window I could not open. But I refused to stay on the outside. I threw myself into everything available to me. I joined the A+ Program and kept my grades up. I tutored younger students who were struggling, because I understood what it felt like to be lost and need patient help. I competed on the swim team, learning that discipline means showing up even when your body and mind are exhausted. I became my school’s mascot, which gave me a community and a sense of belonging I desperately needed. I helped care for my grandparents’ horses, taking on real responsibility before sunrise every day. Each of these things was a way of saying — I am here. I am not giving up. I belong. My career aspiration is to become a commercial pilot. That dream was born on the very flight that brought me to safety. Somewhere above the clouds, in the middle of everything falling apart, I looked out the window and felt wonder for the first time in weeks. The science of flight, the vastness of the sky, the impossible miracle of a machine carrying human beings through the air — it captured me completely and has never let go. I have been accepted to Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to begin my aviation studies, with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program and earn my commercial pilot’s license. I want to fly commercially and one day be a symbol to other young immigrants and refugees that no background, no trauma, and no starting point is too difficult to overcome. My immigrant experience did not break me. It showed me exactly who I am. I am someone who can lose everything and still find a reason to look up. The sky has been calling me since the day I first touched it. I intend to answer.

I have been raised by the strongest person I have ever known. My mother has been my only parent for as long as it truly matters — since the day we lost my father and she made the decision to carry our entire lives on her shoulders alone. She did not choose to be a single parent. That choice was made for her by violence and grief. But she showed up anyway, every single day, without complaint, without surrender, and without ever letting me feel like we were not going to be okay. Growing up in her household taught me things that no school ever could. My mother was a leader of a women’s rights organization in Pakistan. She spent her life fighting for people who had no voice, alongside my father, who believed in the same cause. When my father was murdered by members of our own family, and I was kidnapped, she could have collapsed. She had every reason to. Instead she made the hardest decision of her life — she packed what she could, she took me, and she brought us to the United States seeking asylum. She left her career, her community, her home, and the movement she had built, because keeping me alive mattered more than any of it. That is the household I grew up in. One where sacrifice is not talked about — it is just done. When we arrived in America, it was just the two of us figuring everything out in a country we had never lived in before. I watched my mother navigate immigration paperwork, financial stress, cultural barriers, and grief all at the same time, in a language that was not her first. She never once made me feel like a burden. She made me feel like a reason. The accomplishment that led to a new understanding of myself happened quietly, without any ceremony. It was the first time I successfully tutored a younger student who had been struggling in school and watched something click for them. They went from frustrated and defeated to genuinely excited in the span of one session. I walked home that day and realized something I had not fully understood before — I had something to give. I had arrived in this country feeling like I had nothing, like I was starting from absolute zero. But I had experience. I had resilience. I had a perspective on struggle that made me genuinely useful to someone who was going through their own hard time. My mother taught me that. She taught me that what you have been through does not have to stay inside you as pain. It can come out as purpose. I have been accepted to Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to study aviation, with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program and become a commercial pilot. My mother raised me alone in a foreign country to get me to this moment. Every good grade, every scholarship application, every early morning and late night of hard work is for her as much as it is for me. Being raised in a single parent household did not make my life harder in ways I resent. It made me who I am. It taught me that one person, with enough love and enough will, can hold an entire world together. My mother proved that every day. I intend to spend the rest of my life proving that her sacrifice was worth it.

I did not fall in love with math and science in a classroom. I fell in love with them at 30,000 feet. The first time I ever boarded a plane was the day my family fled Pakistan for our safety. My father had been murdered, I had been kidnapped, and my mother made the devastating decision to leave everything behind to keep me alive. I was terrified. I did not know what our future looked like or where we were going. But somewhere over the clouds, I looked out that window and forgot, just for a moment, to be afraid. I was completely captured by the idea that this massive machine — hundreds of thousands of pounds of metal — was somehow staying in the air. How? Why? What invisible forces were holding us up? That question never left me. It became the foundation of everything. When I arrived in America and started school, math and science became more than subjects to me. They became the language of the thing I loved most. I learned that the lift keeping a plane airborne is governed by Bernoulli’s principle — a difference in air pressure above and below the wing created by its shape and angle. I learned that navigation requires precise calculations, that weather systems are governed by atmospheric physics, that every single decision a pilot makes in the cockpit has a mathematical or scientific basis. Aviation is not just connected to math and science. Aviation is math and science in motion. That realization transformed how I approached school. Suddenly every equation had a purpose. Every physics concept had an application I could picture. I stopped seeing math as abstract numbers on a page and started seeing it as the blueprint for flight. That shift in perspective made me a better student and a more curious thinker. I participated in the A+ Program, maintained strong academics, and tutored younger students in subjects they found difficult — because I understood what it felt like when something finally clicks, and I wanted to give that feeling to others. My plan is to attend Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to study aviation, then transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program to earn my commercial pilot’s license. Every step of that journey will be built on math and science. Flight planning uses trigonometry and physics. Aircraft systems require understanding of mechanical engineering. Meteorology — understanding weather patterns and how they affect flight — is pure atmospheric science. I am not just passionate about these subjects in theory. I am going to spend my life applying them. But my goals go beyond my own cockpit. I came from a country where access to education — especially for women and marginalized communities — is not guaranteed. My mother fought for that access her entire life. I want to honor her work by becoming someone who uses their education to lift others. I want to mentor young students from immigrant and refugee backgrounds who feel like math and science are not for people like them — who feel like the advanced careers built on those subjects belong to someone else. I want to show them that a kid from Pakistan who arrived in America with nothing can master the physics of flight and turn it into a life. Math and science gave me a way to understand the world. Aviation gave me a reason to love them. And this scholarship would give me the next step toward a future built on both.

I never thought much about the future when I was growing up in Pakistan. Not because I was not ambitious, but because the present always felt so full — full of my parents’ work, their passion, their belief that the world could be better than it was. My father and mother were advocates for women’s rights in a country where that kind of work puts a target on your back. I grew up watching them fight for people who had no one else fighting for them. I thought that was just what life looked like. I thought we were untouchable because we were doing the right thing. I was wrong. My father was murdered by members of our own family. The people who were supposed to love us were the ones who took him from us. Shortly after, I was kidnapped. My mother, who had spent years standing up for other women, now had to make the most devastating decision of her life — she had to choose between the life she had built and the life of her child. She chose me. We fled Pakistan and came to the United States seeking asylum, and I boarded a plane for the very first time not out of excitement, but out of survival. I did not know it then, but that plane ride was about to change everything. Somewhere above the clouds, in the middle of the most frightening experience of my life, I looked out the window and felt something I was not prepared for. Wonder. Pure, overwhelming wonder. The way the world looked from up there — so vast, so quiet, so full of possibility — cracked something open in me. For the first time in weeks, I was not thinking about what we had lost. I was thinking about what was out there. Aviation entered my soul on that flight, and it has never left. Starting over in America as a high school student was brutal in ways that are hard to explain. I did not just have to learn a new school or make new friends. I had to rebuild my entire identity in a place where nobody knew me, in a culture that was completely foreign, while carrying grief that most teenagers could not imagine. There were mornings I woke up and did not know how I was going to get through the day. But I kept going. I kept going because my mother kept going, and I refused to let her sacrifice be wasted. Education became my anchor. It gave me structure when everything else felt chaotic. It gave me goals when I felt directionless. I threw myself into my schoolwork, joined the A+ Program, and tutored younger students who were struggling — because I knew what it felt like to need someone in your corner. I competed on the swim team, learning that discipline and pushing through exhaustion are choices you make every single day. I served as my school mascot, bringing joy and energy to a community that had welcomed me when I had nothing. I helped care for my grandparents’ horses, learning patience and responsibility in the quiet, early mornings before school. Every single one of those experiences taught me something about who I am and who I want to become. I have been accepted to Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to study aviation, with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program and earn my commercial pilot’s license. That is not just a career plan. That is a promise I made to myself on that first flight out of Pakistan. The sky showed me hope when I had none, and I am going to spend my life up there honoring that. But my dream goes beyond just flying. I want to use my education and my story to create something bigger than myself. I know what it feels like to be a young person from another country, sitting in an American classroom, wondering if you belong, wondering if your dreams are even allowed to be as big as everyone else’s. I want to be proof that they are. I want to mentor other refugee and immigrant students who are navigating the same impossible maze I had to navigate — financial aid, scholarship applications, cultural barriers, grief, and the relentless pressure of starting from zero. I want them to see someone who looked like them, who came from what they came from, and made it anyway. Education did not just shape my goals. It saved my life a second time. The first time was that plane. The second time was every teacher who believed in me, every book that gave me language for what I was feeling, every scholarship application that forced me to sit down and articulate exactly who I am and what I am fighting for. That process — of putting your story into words and saying this is me, this is what I have been through, this is what I am going to do with it — is one of the most powerful things a person can do. I am a teenage kid from Pakistan who lost his father, lost his home, and had to build a new life from nothing in a country he had never seen before. I am also a student, a tutor, a swimmer, a mascot, a caretaker, and a future commercial pilot. I am someone who looked out a plane window at the darkest moment of his life and chose to find beauty in it. That is what education gave me. The ability to choose. The ability to dream. The ability to rise. And I am just getting started.

I did not choose to come to the United States. I came because staying would have cost me my life. I grew up in Pakistan in a family that stood for something. My father and my mother dedicated their lives to fighting for women’s rights in a country where that kind of courage comes with consequences. I was proud of them. I still am. But when my father was murdered by members of our own family, and I was kidnapped shortly after, my mother had to make a decision no parent should ever have to make. She chose to save me over everything else — over her home, her community, her entire life. We fled to the United States and applied for asylum, arriving with almost nothing but each other. The first time I ever boarded a plane was the day we left. I was terrified and heartbroken and completely lost. But somewhere over the clouds, I looked out the window and felt something unexpected — wonder. That moment planted a seed in me that has never stopped growing. Aviation became my passion, my direction, and my reason to keep pushing forward even when everything felt impossible. Starting over in America as a high school student was one of the hardest things I have ever done. New language, new culture, new everything — and carrying grief that most people my age could not imagine. There were days I did not know how I was going to keep going. But I made a decision early on that I was not going to let what happened to my family be the end of my story. I threw myself into school, joined the A+ Program, tutored younger students who were struggling, competed on the swim team, served as my school mascot, and helped care for my grandparents’ horses. I chose to show up every single day, because I knew my mother had sacrificed too much for me to do anything less. The person who has inspired me most in my life is my mother. She lost her husband, her home, and the movement she had built — and she still woke up every morning and fought for me. She never complained. She never gave up. She just kept going, quietly and fiercely, the way strong people do. She taught me that resilience is not about being unbreakable. It is about choosing to rebuild even when you are shattered. Every time I feel like quitting, I think about her, and I keep going. After graduating, I plan to attend Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to study aviation, then transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program to earn my commercial pilot’s license. My dream is to become a commercial pilot — to turn the moment that carried me to safety into a career that carries others. I want to be living proof that no matter where you come from or what you have been through, the sky is still reachable. I am just a teenager from Pakistan who lost a lot and had to start from zero in a country I had never seen before. But I am also someone with a plan, a passion, and a mother who showed me what it looks like to never stop fighting. The United States gave my family a second chance, and I do not intend to waste a single second of it.

The movie that has had the greatest impact on my life is Interstellar. I watched it during one of the hardest periods of my life — after fleeing Pakistan, losing my father to violence, and trying to rebuild my sense of self in a country that was completely foreign to me. I was grieving, disoriented, and searching for something I could not name. I did not expect a science fiction film to be the thing that reached me. But Interstellar did something quietly extraordinary. It shifted my entire perspective on what it means to be alive. There is a moment in the film where Earth appears from the vastness of space — a tiny, fragile dot suspended in an infinite, indifferent universe. That image stopped me cold. I had been carrying so much weight. The loss of my father. The trauma of being kidnapped. The guilt of leaving. The exhaustion of starting over. And then suddenly, all of that existed alongside something incomprehensibly larger than myself. My pain was real, but the universe was infinite. And somehow, that did not make my suffering feel meaningless — it made it feel survivable. I was a small dot, yes, but I was still here. Still burning. Still moving. Interstellar also forced me to ask a question I had never seriously sat with before — what is the actual purpose of life? The film does not answer that question with achievements or ambition. It answers it with love. With connection. With the idea that the most powerful force in existence is the bond between people who choose each other across any distance, even across time. That wrecked me in the best way, because I had just lived that. My mother gave up her entire world to keep me safe. That is not a small thing. That is the whole point. That realization reshaped how I move through the world. If life is short and the universe is vast, then the only thing truly worth doing is spending your time making the people around you feel seen, valued, and less alone. I think about that every time I tutor a younger student who is struggling. I think about it when I show up to care for my grandparents’ horses, when I put on that mascot costume and brought energy to my school, when I swam competitively and pushed myself not just for my own times but for my team. I want to leave every room and every person better than I found them. Interstellar gave me the language for why. The film also deepened something that was already growing in me — my love for aviation. The idea of pushing beyond what is known, of ascending above the ordinary and touching something greater, is exactly what draws me to flight. I am pursuing an aviation degree at Metropolitan Community College with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri and become a commercial pilot. When I sit in that cockpit for the first time, I know I will think about that image of Earth from space. Small. Beautiful. Worth protecting. We are a small dot in an infinite universe. Interstellar taught me that the answer to that is not despair — it is purpose. It is love. It is choosing, every single day, to make your small dot matter to the people around you. That is the life I am committed to living.

Aviation did not enter my life gently. It arrived on the worst day of my family’s existence and somehow became the best thing that ever happened to me. I grew up in Pakistan in a home full of purpose. My father and mother were advocates, fighters for women’s rights in a country where that work came with real danger. I was proud of them. Then my father was murdered by members of our own family, and shortly after, I was kidnapped. My mother looked at the life we had built and made the only decision a loving parent could — she chose me over everything else. We fled to the United States seeking asylum, leaving behind our home, our community, and the life we had always known. The vehicle of that escape was an airplane. I had never flown before. I did not know what to expect. What I did not expect was that somewhere between the fear and the grief and the uncertainty of not knowing what our lives would look like on the other side, I would look out that window and feel something close to peace. The ground fell away beneath us and something in me shifted permanently. I was captivated. I did not have the words for it then, but I understand it now — aviation gave me the first moment of wonder I had felt in what seemed like forever. It reminded me that the world was still vast and full of possibility, even when my world had just been shattered. That flight did not just carry me to safety. It gave me a direction. Since arriving in America, I have worked hard to build something real. I excelled in school, participated in the A+ Program, tutored younger students, served as my school mascot, competed in swimming, and helped care for my grandparents’ horses. I have tried to show up fully in every space I have been given, because I do not take the opportunity to simply be here for granted. Not everyone gets to make it out. I have been accepted to Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to study aviation, with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program and earn my commercial pilot’s license. Every time I take a step toward that goal, I think about that first flight. I think about how a machine built to defy gravity pulled me out of the darkest chapter of my life and set me on a course I never could have predicted. Ali Safai spent his life inspiring the next generation of aviators. He believed in the power of flight to shape people, to push them toward greatness, to open doors that fear and circumstance had closed. I believe that too — because I lived it. Aviation did not just impact my life. It saved it. And now I am committed to honoring that by becoming the kind of pilot who impacts others the same way. The sky is not just my dream. It is my proof that I survived, and my promise that I will soar

Growing up in Pakistan, money was never something my family discussed openly — it was simply something we worried about in silence. My parents poured their energy into activism and community, my mother leading a women’s rights organization alongside my father. Financial planning felt secondary to survival, and in many ways, it was. When my father was murdered and I was kidnapped, survival became literal. My mother made the decision to flee to the United States, and we arrived with almost nothing — no savings, no financial safety net, and no roadmap for starting over in a brand new country. America taught me about money the hard way. I watched my mother figure out rent, bills, groceries, and immigration costs all at once, in a language that was not her first, in a system she had never navigated before. There was no cushion. Every dollar had a job. I learned what a budget really meant not from a textbook but from watching her face when the numbers did not add up. I learned what financial stress looks like on a person you love, and I decided early that I would do everything in my power to understand money so that I could help change that. As I began thinking seriously about college and my dream of becoming a commercial pilot, financial literacy became even more critical. Flight training is expensive. Aviation degrees cost money that most families — and certainly mine — do not simply have sitting around. I have had to become a student of financial aid, scholarships, grants, and budgeting just to get my foot in the door. I researched my eligibility as an asylum seeker, discovered I may qualify for federal aid through FAFSA, and have been applying to every scholarship I can find. That process alone has taught me more about financial systems, planning, and strategy than I ever expected. I have been accepted to Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to pursue aviation, with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program. Every step of that journey requires financial planning — tuition, fees, flight hours, certifications. I am approaching it like a pilot approaches a flight plan. You do not just take off and hope for the best. You map every leg of the journey, account for every cost, and prepare for the unexpected. What I plan to do with this financial knowledge goes beyond paying for school. I want to build a stable life for my mother, who sacrificed everything to give me a future. I want to understand investing, saving, and long term planning so that the financial insecurity we experienced when we first arrived never defines our lives again. And one day, when I am a licensed commercial pilot, I want to be someone who gives back — whether that means mentoring other refugee students navigating financial aid or simply showing them that it is possible to build something real from nothing. Financial literacy is not just a skill to me. It is the difference between surviving and thriving. I have seen both sides, and I choose thriving.

The first time I ever boarded a plane, I was not traveling for vacation or excitement. I was fleeing for my life. I grew up in Pakistan, where my father was murdered by members of our own family because of the work he and my mother did advocating for women’s rights. Shortly after, I was kidnapped. My mother, a courageous women’s rights leader, made the most painful decision a parent can make — she chose to uproot everything to keep me alive. We came to the United States seeking asylum, and that flight changed me forever. Looking out the window of that plane as it lifted into the sky, I felt something I did not expect — wonder. In the middle of fear and uncertainty, aviation gave me peace. From that moment, I knew that flying was not just something I wanted to do. It was something I was meant to do. I am now a high school senior who has been accepted to Metropolitan Community College in Kansas City to pursue an aviation degree, with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program and earn my commercial pilot’s license. Aviation is my purpose, and I am pursuing it with everything I have. My drive does not stop at my own goals. Community has always mattered deeply to me. I served as my school’s mascot, bringing energy and school spirit to every event. I was a swimmer, learning discipline and the value of pushing through exhaustion. I participated in the A+ Program and tutored younger students, because I know what it means to need guidance and I wanted to give that to others. I also help care for my grandparents’ horses, a responsibility that has taught me patience, consistency, and showing up every single day whether you feel like it or not. Those are the same qualities that make a great pilot. I do not yet have my private pilot’s license, but I am actively working toward that goal. Every step I take in my education is bringing me closer to the cockpit. I am applying to MCC with full intention to begin flight training and earn my certifications as part of my degree program. My timeline is built around becoming a licensed commercial pilot, and nothing is going to stop that. What I plan to do with my aviation degree is simple — I want to fly, and I want to inspire others who come from difficult circumstances to believe that their dreams are still possible. As a Pakistani asylum seeker who came to this country with nothing, I understand what it feels like to look at a future that seems impossibly far away. Aviation is how I am closing that distance. One day I hope to be the kind of pilot that a young refugee looks up at in the sky and thinks — if they can do it, so can I. Kyle Rairdan’s family created this scholarship to honor someone who loved aviation and believed in helping others who share that passion. I believe I carry that same fire. I am not just interested in aviation — I am committed to it with my whole life.

I never imagined my first time on a plane would be the day I was fleeing for my life. In Pakistan, my father was murdered by our own family, and I was kidnapped. My mother, a women’s rights leader who had fought alongside my father for a better world, made the devastating decision that staying would cost me my life. So we left everything behind and came to America. The moment that plane lifted off the ground, something shifted in me. In the middle of the most frightening experience of my life, I felt wonder. I looked out that window and knew — somehow — that aviation would be my future. That flight gave me purpose. Since arriving in the United States, I have worked hard in school, served as my school mascot, and built a life from nothing in a country that gave my family a second chance. I have been accepted to Metropolitan Community College to pursue aviation, with plans to transfer to the University of Central Missouri’s flight program. My personal experiences did not break me. They gave me a direction. Every time I look up at the sky, I am reminded of why I am here and where I am going