Dare to educate Afghan girls

In her 2012 TEDxWomen talk, “Dare to educate Afghan girls,” Shabana Basij-Rasikh recounts attending school secretly with her older sister during the Taliban’s first rule. She dressed as a boy to accompany her sister; the girls hid their books in shopping bags and varied their routes to avoid suspicion. The detail makes the “right to education” material rather than abstract: whether a girl can learn depends on whether she can leave home, who can accompany her, where a classroom exists and whether a family is willing to face the risk.

The talk also shows education relying on a network that is not always visible. SOLA’s official history says secret schools in Kabul often operated in private homes and were run by women; girls’ attendance was an action shared by teachers, families and communities. In Basij-Rasikh’s account, her father hears a radio report about the political change in 2001 and tells his daughter that she can now attend a regular school. The scene carries genuine joy and shows how family support can shape what a girl is able to do. But if the story becomes only “a brave father sends his daughter to school,” the organizing labor of women teachers and secret classrooms recedes. His decision matters, but it is not the only political action in the story.

The TEDx talk was published in 2013 and describes the history of the Taliban’s first period in power and girls’ return to school after 2001; it is not a current report on access to education in Afghanistan. SOLA’s official founder biography records that Basij-Rasikh co-founded the school in 2008 and led its community’s evacuation from Kabul to Rwanda in 2021. Read together, the later history makes clear that education does not happen only in a classroom. When institutions close schools, communities sustain learning through secret teaching; after displacement, an educational organization must rebuild safety, space and belonging as well.

Because the talk centers one family’s decision, it cannot stand for every Afghan girl or household, and “resilience” should not obscure the costs created by an oppressive regime. Its value is to read alongside accounts of girls’ education in other regions and ask how a shared claim to a right meets different histories. Leymah Gbowee’s talk on girls’ potential and education offers a different regional account. The comparison should not flatten either one into a universal story; instead, ask who organizes learning, who bears the risk and what turns educational rights into durable public infrastructure.

Talk and further reading

• Official TEDxWomen talk and transcript
• SOLA’s official founder profile and school history
• Compare with Leymah Gbowee’s talk on girls’ education