Shabana basij-rasikh biography definition

The following is a conversation between Shabana Basij-Rasikh, Founder and President of the School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA), and Denver Frederick, the Host of The Business of Giving.

Denver:Mynext guest has dedicated her life to providing a safe, inclusive learning environment for Afghan girls, fostering cross-cultural understanding, and empowering the next generation of female leaders in the face of unimaginable adversity.

She orchestrated the daring evacuation of her students from Afghanistan to Rwanda, ensuring their safety and continuity of education. She is Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the founder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan or SOLA. Welcome to The Business of Giving, Shabana.

Shabana: Thanks so much, Denver, for having me.

“…that was one of the first m

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Afghan activist Shabana Basij Rasikh: ‘My family sent me to a secret school dressed as a boy’

Shabana Basij Rasikh chokes up and stops talking for a moment. While in Madrid to receive a UNICEF Spain 2023 award, her emotions briefly interrupted a heartfelt description of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA). Tears well up in her eyes as she reflected on the resilience and bravery of the young Afghan girls who study at the school she founded in Kabul, and later relocated to Rwanda in August 2021 when the Taliban returned to power. She continues to bring Afghan girls to SOLA in Rwanda and is developing an online program for those who cannot attend in person.

Question. Would you tell an Afghan girl to follow your parents’ example and attend a secret school?

Answer. You know, as someone who did it, I can say yes. But I must say it’s an incredibly personal decision because taking that kind of risk is not easy. It’s scary, and the consequences are severe — no one wants to fa

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Midd grad and her hona students flee Afghanistan

MIDDLEBURY — On Aug. 20, as thousands of Afghans desperate to leave the country converged on the airport in Kabul — and Taliban fighters, who had taken over the city just fem days before, tried to stop them with threats and violence and hastily erected checkpoints — Middlebury College graduate Shabana Basij-Rasikh stood in front of a furnace at an undisclosed location in the region and fed into its fire a steady diet of paper documents.

“I’m burning my students’ records not to erase them, but to protect them and their families,” Basij-Rasikh explained on Twitter.

In 2008, during her first year at Middlebury, Basij-Rasikh co-founded, with Oregon businessman Ted Achilles, the School of Leadership-Afghanistan, or SOLA, which in Pashto means “peace.” Initially aimed at securing scholarship opportunities for person från afghanistan girls, SOLA evolved into an all-girls boarding school in Kabul.

Two of the students Basij-Rasikh was protecting were si