In December 2024, Waheedullah Elham arrived in Sacramento with a wife, a two-year-old daughter, and $100. A friend had donated the money as county benefits would start in January.
He knew what to do with a number that small. His mother taught him. She was illiterate but brilliant at math, and during the first Taliban era, when sanctions choked their village in Qarabagh, a rural district north of Kabul, she taught her ten-year-old son how to make 2,000 Afghani last two months.
“You have to spend 10 Afghani purchasing sugar, 20 Afghani purchasing flour,” she told him.
The car fare to school was 20 Afghani. His family couldn’t afford it, so he walked. Two hours each way, four hours round trip, every day through winter, his shoes filling with snow.
“Math and accountancy were the legacy of my mother,” Wahid says.
Those lessons carried him through years as a task lead for Youth in Action Consulting Services, a Department of Defense contractor, starting in June 2016. He managed budgets for the Afghan Ministry of Defense. He dealt with financial statements. He worked with international staff, Americans, and people who became friends.
“It was a great experience,” he says. “It was the best target of my life.”
In the Sacramento apartment, his wife sat him down. “Wahid, we all know how difficult and hard we came through in Afghanistan, and we’ve reached the U.S.,” she told him. “We survived in Afghanistan even with nothing. But you can survive even if we have $100. It’s only 24 or 26 days.”
They went back to Qarabagh mathematics. They bought bread and counted days like pennies. They made it to January.
Wahid had managed financial logistics for U.S. military operations. He had the background to sit for the CPA exam. He couldn’t afford the tuition to prove it.
The first thing he did once the family stabilized was walk into American River College. “I told them that I had very difficult days and hardships in Afghanistan, actually too many,” he says. “I worked as a task lead with one of the companies, and I’m really into finances, taxes, and this stuff. So, I would like to continue the same journey.”
They told him, “Wahid, you’re at the right place.”
He enrolled, seeking an associate degree in business administration with an accountancy focus. He took his first class, Introduction to Business. Then he heard about the America’s Allies Scholarship Program.
No One Left Behind and the Afghan Future Fund launched the AASP in October 2025, the first scholarship built for Afghan and Iraqi allies who hold Special Immigrant Visas. More than 800 people applied to the first cohort. Twenty-one were funded, up to $15,000 each, $110,000 in all.
Wahid didn’t own a computer.
He went to his professor. “I told him that I don’t have a computer to draft my AASP. You know, what can I do?”
The professor told him he could use the computer lab anytime. “Even if you need, I can just give you my own computer for a short while. After you are done with your AASP, you can return it back to me.”
Wahid spent ten days drafting his application. He brought it back for review. He gathered his documents and submitted them.
Then he waited.
No One Left Behind called one evening in Sacramento. Wahid had been shortlisted. There would be an interview. Weeks later, the acceptance.
“I had the biggest happiness on that day,” Wahid says. “It was a great honor.”
“This journey of becoming a CPA or becoming a professional accountant,” he says, “it was impossible without your assistance.”
Wahid is pursuing his associate degree at American River College. He plans to transfer to either Sacramento State or UC Davis, depending on his counselor’s recommendation, to pursue a master’s degree in professional accountancy. Then the CPA exam.
He hasn’t stopped teaching. His Afghan neighbors call him the “Tax Professor.” He explains the U.S. taxation system to immigrants who can’t parse the language, much less the concepts.
“A lot of other Afghans don’t know about taxes in the U.S.,” he says. “If you don’t understand the English, how it would be possible for you to understand the taxes? I am just teaching them the U.S. taxation system, telling them everything I know about taxes.”
At 1 a.m. one night, his American neighbor called. His wife was sick, couldn’t speak, needed to get to the hospital. Wahid got out of bed and drove her to the emergency room.
“They give me support,” he says. “I give them support. This is the coexistence.”
The scholarship let him stop calculating the price of bread and start calculating tax law.
“Nowadays,” he says, “things are like eating cookies for me.”
