In 2005, Razia Jan came up with a dangerous idea: to start a free private school for girls in her native Afghanistan. The Taliban were using extreme violence to keep girls from learning. In 2008, the year she opened the school, terrorists in the country — armed with bombs, poison gas, guns, grenades, and acid — killed 149 teachers, students, and employees in Afghan schools.
But Jan did not intend to let terrorists stop her. She approached Afghan Ministry of Education officials and persuaded them to donate a piece of land in a village 30 miles outside Kabul. Today, the Zabuli Education Center is in its sixth year and has a roster of more than 400 girls in kindergarten through ninth grade.
Without the school, many of the students never would have had the chance to receive an education. “I can feel a change happening in these girls and in this community,” says Jan, who moved back to Afghanistan after building a successful tailoring business in Duxbury, Massachusetts, USA. “Knowledge is something nobody can steal from them.”
The Rotarian magazine talked with her about her experience launching the school.
Read the full article here:
https://www.rotary.org/en/dangerous-idea-offers-hope-girls-afghanistan