Trainee Special Education H-3
Let’s say you come from the small nation of Burkina Faso and want to learn about wildlife conservation. Your country doesn’t offer a course in that, but the United States does. The Trainee Special Education H-3 nonimmigrant visa category was designed exactly for people like you.
In a nutshell, you can apply for an H3 visa to enter the US to receive any training that is not available in your home country other than graduate medical education or training.
How a child she couldn’t have changed Amina’s life with a
Trainee Special Education H-3 Visa from the United States of America.
Around the same time that she won the Miss International contest in Europe, Amina Khan learned that she could never have children because of a condition called Absolute Uterine Factor Infertility. Winning a beauty contest automatically made her a star back home in Karachi, Pakistan, but also got her labelled as a ‘modern girl’ among orthodox Pakistanis. Girls there weren’t supposed to flaunt themselves.
Nevertheless, that didn’t stop long lines of suitors — or Amina. By age 24, she was married to a handsome young cricketer called Hasan. They decided they would try to have a child anyway, whatever the doctors said. To everyone’s surprise, Amina conceived. To everyone’s dismay, her daughter was born with Down’s syndrome.
It would be an understatement to say that her life changed dramatically. Amina discovered an intense maternal feeling and immersed herself in understanding her baby’s condition and how to provide the best care for her. As she learned more about such disabilities, she realized that Pakistan was full of mothers like her, with infants needing special care. It was also a country with few formal courses in the care of children with disabilities.
Inspired to learn more, she joined an online course in special education run by the University of Derby, UK, and earned a bachelor’s degree. With the support of her husband, she launched an NGO called The Special Child Foundation. Within two years, she had started training classes for mothers.
She was rapidly becoming a prominent figure internationally in the fight for the rights of disabled children, and frequently addressed global forums. By then there were 125 children in her NGO’s care.
It was her husband who suggested that she should consider taking a year’s break and studying for a master’s degree in Special Education. His online research led him to a master’s degree course at the University of San Francisco, California.
Suddenly the doorway to the US was wide open for Amina and she definitely wanted to go. Her only question was which visa she should apply for.
To Amina’s delight, her husband found a visa that had seemed to have been designed for people exactly like her — the Trainee Special Education H-3 nonimmigrant visa category. This visa is specifically for people with a deep interest in the education of children with physical, mental or emotional disabilities who want to receive training in the US. In fact, the Education H-3 visa is open to anyone who seeks any training in the US that is not available in their home country, as long as it isn’t graduate medical education.
Only 50 Trainee Special Education H-3 visas are issued each year but Amina, with her international recognition, sailed through. She thoroughly relished her time in the US, loved California, and made lots of friends with similar interests. By the time she returned, she was not only professionally qualified but had also found several big donors to help fund and further her work with The Special Child Foundation.
You can get more information on the Trainee Special Education H-3 visa from the detailed, user-friendly visa guides you get when you buy one of our Visa Plans.
If you have questions or would like clarifications, please send us an email and we’ll do our best to get back to you within 24 hours with an answer.