Girls from Afghanistan reclaim their futures through online education

Since their return to power, the Taliban have plunged Afghanistan deeper into poverty and severely restricted women's and girls' rights; banning them from education beyond primary level. UNESCO estimates that 1.2 million Afghanistani girls over the age of 12 have been displaced from schools and universities.

Aqdas was 14 when the Taliban took over, feeling her future vanish overnight. She describes the period as "gloomy and suffocating," with a deep sense of uncertainty. Her life changed when she began learning online with the Herat Online School , engaging in English classes, creative writing, and art workshops with volunteer teachers.

Aqdas says, “The school pierced through the dark and reminded me of my forgotten potential. Every time I had a class, I could feel my freedom and dreams that were stolen from me by the current regime.” This autumn, having been mentored through a successful application, Aqdas will begin the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme at United World College in the United States. She was one of a small number of students awarded the scholarship, out of over one thousand applicants.

Afghanistan Education Action, a UK registered charity, was founded by Angela Ghayour, a former teacher and activist for women’s and education rights. Angela fled the violence of the Taliban in Afghanistan back in 2009 on foot as a political refugee. After a dangerous journey over mountain ranges into Iran, over the course of the next decade she went on to Europe, from Greece to Italy and the Netherlands, travelling alone, heavily pregnant, with two small children.

She finally found safety in West Sussex in 2018, and when the Taliban took over on August 15th 2021, she was flooded with messages from former teaching colleagues and students from her home town of Herat in Afghanistan, who were soon cut off from learning.

With support from the Chichester based charity Children on the Edge, Angela has been developing two online schools in response. She states, “I simply could not sit and witness the despair, tears, and grief of the girls of my homeland, so I started to light a candle in the dark to keep the hope of the bright day alive.”

The Herat Online School offers education through online classes, with planned lessons and activities taught in Persian. The organisation’s new pilot ‘International School’ responds to student requests for formal qualifications in English, enabling them to pursue further education abroad. Both initiatives have already seen remarkable results, with students like Aqdas accessing high school programmes and others enrolling in institutions such as the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança in Portugal, the University of Edinburgh, and the online University of the People.

Current students benefit from an online library with over 200 titles and a comprehensive database of university programmes and scholarship opportunities worldwide. The schools support students to attend international competitions and events, with some earning ‘Best Delegate Awards’ at online International Model United Nations conferences.

Mentorship is central to the schools’ success, with 17 students participating in a group dedicated to university applications. Sarah, now studying Informatics Engineering in Portugal, says the school provided not only strong educational foundations but also gave her “a deep sense of belonging and community which was comforting and empowering”, when she was prevented from studying in Afghanistan. She now plans to develop her programming skills and pursue a master’s in Artificial Intelligence.

Afghanistan remains the only country where girls are banned from secondary school, with women largely forbidden to work and required to stay home, fully covered, and only allowed outside with a male chaperone. Despite these challenges, dedicated education activists like Angela and her team of volunteer teachers continue to provide vital education, connection to the outside world, and pathways to higher education, defying the odds and offering hope for the future.

How can I help? Thanks to the support of Children on the Edge, Afghanistan Education Action is now a UK registered charity with board members based in West Sussex. If you would like to make a donation to their work, you can visit www.afghanistaneducationaction.org

For local ladies, ‘Women Singing for Women’ is a free singing event taking place on Saturday 17th August at Grace Church, Chichester. The event marks the three year anniversary of the Taliban takeover and is a chance to show solidarity with women and girls from Afghanistan. A special Persian song has been written for the occasion and any women are welcome to come and join in to learn the song, which will be recorded and shared with Herat School students. Book your place at: www.afghanistaneducationaction.org/events