It started with one flier.
Then it quickly turned into five, then 10, and before she knew it, Homaira Hosseini had one too many fliers in her bag and one too many causes to fight for.
While other students might speed up their pace as they walk past students passing out fliers on Bruin Walk, Hosseini, a presidential candidate for the undergraduate student government, can’t help but take every flyer that’s given to her.
“She will go out of her way to get their fliers to just know about their cause,” said Sarah El-Annan, a fourth-year international development studies student and a friend of Hosseini’s.
Those causes are what prompted Hosseini to run for a position in student government.
Hosseini, a third-year political science student running with the Students First! slate, said that among other goals, she hopes to make the workings of student government more transparent by holding a “State of the University” address each quarter.
In the address, she would outline the council’s goals and past accomplishments, as well as allow time for students to voice their concerns. She added that she would also place agendas for meetings online.
If elected, Hosseini said, she would strive to have students serve as representatives in city council meetings and would work to ensure that UCLA’s investments are put to good use.
At the heart of her campaign, though, is creating a stronger sense of community among students.
“One thing that I’ve learned … is that people can learn so much if they just network together,” Hosseini said.
Hosseini’s passion for community service has long be a part of her, and some might even say it is in her blood.
Born in Afghanistan to a federal judge and a mother concerned with helping others in need, Hosseini was raised in a household that placed a great emphasis on “equity and justice,” as her older sister Ilham Hosseini described it.
Hosseini embraced those values from a young age. Whenever her mother would organize clothing drives for Afghanis affected by the war, Hosseini would tag along and help.
“To understand Homaira, you have to understand her mother. … Her determination and her sense of activism has influenced her daughters,” said Khaled Hosseini, Homaira Hosseini’s cousin and author of the novels “The Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Splendid Suns.”
“They had to make lives from scratch … as refugees from the war,” he said. “Having gone through that helped shape Homaira’s character and (gave) her inner strength.”
Still, Homaira Hosseini has a cheerful demeanor, often joking and poking fun at herself even when the issues touch her deeply.
“I don’t understand people that know about an issue and choose to ignore it. That’s so hard for me to comprehend,” Hosseini said.
Her own knowledge made her determined to volunteer in communities where help was needed the most.
Her voice, usually energetic, slows down while recalling her experiences mentoring young students at David Starr Jordan High School in Watts.
Only then does her smile fade away, as she recounts a conversation with a student who had lost faith.
She recalled the boy saying he had lost all hope in pursuing an education because he didn’t know whether he would be alive the next day.
Experiences like this are what continue to draw her to places like Jordan High, where a school shooting once caused the school to be placed in lockdown.
“Just being able to understand those things and being exposed to those things, has really changed me as a person,” Hosseini said, shifting her eyes from the table. “I chose to put myself in those situations.”
But the smile in her eyes returned when she began talking about the positive impact the visits had on the students.
She added that while on a recent trip to Afghanistan, the sight of her cousins, who were so happy to attend school, made her appreciate her education much more while reinforcing her desire to make a change.
“She’s an activist in every sense of the word,” El-Annan said.
Still, her activities don’t seem to bog her down. Cynthia Mosqueda, a graduate student representative on the Student Fee Advisory Committee, of which Hosseini is chair, said Hosseini’s activities are a labor of love.
Many describe Hosseini as diplomatic and said she always brings up two sides of an issue.
“She has this amazing ability to make you see the other side,” Ilham said.
Hosseini’s mother, Taiyaba Hosseini, recalled that a preschool classmate of her daughter’s cried for two days from homesickness until Homaira convinced her to stay in school.
“If you put her with any person, with even the most difficult … they would get along,” her mother said.
Amin Eddebbarh, who works with Hosseini in the Academic Mentorship Program, also emphasized her ability to bring people together, something he said could help overcome the party politics of USAC.
“She’s really focused on the larger goal at hand,” Eddebbarh said.
That focus on the larger goal has been the source of much teasing and praise from her family.
“She’s very driven to be an agent of change. We always make fun of her, but at the end of the day, it’s admirable,” her sister said.