Dare to Educate Afghan Girls

Imagine a country where girls must sneak out to go to school, with deadly

consequences if they get caught learning: this was Afghanistan under the

Taliban and traces of that danger remain today. Shabana Basij

Rasikh is the co-founder of the School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA), a

boarding school that provides exceptional educational opportunities for a new

generation of Afghan women. SOLA places special emphasis on fostering a

resourceful learning environment and building a transformative future for women
and Afghanistan.

Shabana was born and raised in Kabul, where she began her

secondary education at Maryam High School. After finishing high school in

Onalaska, WI, through the Youth Exchange & Studies (YES) program sponsored

by the U.S. State Department, Shabana attended Middlebury College, graduating
magna cum laude in International Studies and Women & Gender Studies, and
studied Arabic and Islamic law at Alexandria University in Egypt.


During college, she founded HELA, a non-profit
organization dedicated to empowering Afghan women through education. She also
raised funds through foundations and public talks across the U.S. to build a
high school for girls in her ancestral village, and wells in the outskirts of
Kabul to give communities access to clean drinking water. An enthusiast of
systemic change and community impact, Shabana was selected as one of Glamour®
Magazine's Top 10 College Women of 2010, and was awarded the Vermont Campus
Compact 2011 Kunin Public Award for outstanding public service, effective

leadership and community-building. Shabana currently serves as the National

Gender Mainstreaming Advisor at the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and

Development in Kabul.

Date:   Wednesday, November 13, 2013

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