Instilling Civic Duty in Afghanistan and Preventing Brain Drain
When: Feb. 27, 2014, noon
Where: HLS, WCC 2004
What: Shabana Basij-Rasikh is a 23-year-old co-founder of School of Leadership-Afghanistan (SOLA). Shabana got much of her education under the Taliban by traveling across the city just to sneak into a crowded living room dressed as a boy to learn. A United States program called YES! sent Shabana to Middlebury College in Massachusetts, where she graduated magna cum laude. She returned to Afghanistan to co-found the country’s first girl’s boarding school with an American man, Ted Achilles. Ted had become disenchanted with the U.S. efforts to send Afghan kids to foreign universities because, while Shabana was a success story, many students did not return to Afghanistan. SOLA’s goal, after delivering an education and preparing girls to attend college abroad, is to imbue a sense of civic duty in the girls so they will want to return and help heal their country. This is an Armed Forces Association event sponsored by WLA Women’s Venture Fund and Law and International Development Society.