(Posted October 19, 2009)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Ahmed Javaid Zeerak, head of program, Afghan Rural Enterprise Development Programme in Kabul, Afghanistan, will speak at Juniata College at 8 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 22 in Neff Lecture Hall in the von Liebig Center for Science on the Juniata campus.

Zeerak, who returned to the United States this week as part of briefing team that is meeting in Washington, D.C. to talk with U.S. governmental officials, will speak on "The U.S.A. and Afghanistan."

The lecture is free and open to the public.

Zeerak, whose agency is part of the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development in Kabul, Afghanistan, is a 2006 graduate of Juniata College. He was elected head of Juniata's student government in 2005.

Zeerak first arrived in the United States as a high school exchange student and decided to continue his education in the United States attending Juniata for four years. He earned a bachelor's degree in international political economics.

"I decided to attend Juniata because it was a small college with a flexible program that had a large number of international students," Zeerak said in a 2005 Juniata press release.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.