scienceyoucanlove:Afghan Woman Who Once Went to School in Disguise Opens Boarding School for GirlsSh

scienceyoucanlove:Afghan Woman Who Once Went to School in Disguise Opens Boarding School for GirlsShabana Basij-Rasikh, who evaded the Taliban to get an education, is creating a boarding school for girls in Afghanistan.Eve Conantfor National GeographicPUBLISHED JUNE 19, 2014When Shabana Basij-Rasikh was a child, she dressed up like a boy to walk to school in Taliban-held Afghanistan. Now 24, she is once again defying the odds in her country—this time in her drive to develop an internationally accredited boarding school for girls.Afghanistan has seen vast improvements in education. There are more than 14,000 educational institutions, and a national curriculum has been established after 30 years of conflict.But education remains a challenge for girls and women. Only 12 percent of Afghan women are literate, and among school-age children, 38 percent (4.2 million children, the majority of them girls) do not have access to schools. Violence, tradition, and poverty all conspire—in different parts of the country—to make education for girls a nearly unattainable goal.Yet in a country where some families don’t allow older girls out of the house, Basij-Rasikh wants parents to send their girls away from home to study. She recently met with National Geographic to talk about her own path to a higher education, how—with the help of grants and donations—she has launched a successful boarding school (for security purposes National Geographic is not revealing the location) and why it makes sense for her troubled country.You have been named a National Geographic Emerging Explorer for this year. What does that mean to you as an educator?In the beginning when I first got the call, I just couldn’t believe it. My first instinct was just to say no, because I thought they [National Geographic] had a misunderstanding. The first thing my head went to was, I don’t even know how to swim! And I was thinking maybe they have some sort of exploration that they’ve invited me to conduct, with people from around the world. I thought, I’m an educator, what does this have to do with me? So I was pretty confused. But then they sent me an email explaining.It was very humbling to be selected into this class as the society gets repurposed. The idea is to inspire, illuminate, and teach, and I think these three pillars for the organization are so beautiful. This idea that you can be bold in the idea of how you define exploration—it’s not just for people who go on expeditions to places where humans haven’t gone. But it’s talking about how we human beings find solutions to the problems in our world and the different ways we chose to protect our Earth. The solution I’m working on in Afghanistan is a model of a boarding school that helps educate Afghan women. To have that be defined as an exploration is inspiring.Tell us what led you to start a school, which you call SOLA?The word sola means “peace” in the Pashtun language, but it’s an acronym for School of Leadership, Afghanistan. I was born and raised in Afghanistan and, like many, have had my own challenges in terms of receiving an education as a girl. But after the fall of the Taliban regime, I was selected to come to the U.S. on a State Department-funded exchange program called Youth Exchange and Study (YES).I went to regular public high school in Wisconsin. I had the opportunity to look at Afghanistan from an outsider’s perspective and was amazed at how people talked about it—the words they used to describe Afghanistan.Which words?Words that weren’t part of my daily experience growing up—or not all of it—like “terrorism.” I was aware of the problems while growing up, I knew on some level there was lack of access to education and very basic health care, but I didn’t quite understand how enormous those problems were until I traveled to the U.S. I became like an ambassador. In 2005, many people in Wisconsin were curious about Afghanistan, and I was pushed to learn more and put numbers to the problems. It was really overwhelming for me to say that around 90 percent of women in rural areas are illiterate.I came back to the U.S. to attend college at Middlebury [in Vermont], and I began to realize what privilege I was being exposed to. I have parents who are so committed to education above and beyond anything else in their lives.read more from Nat geo -- source link

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