Shabana Basij-Rasikh: Afghan Educator, Humanitarian, and Women’s Rights Advocate
Born and raised in Kabul, Shabana was just six years old when the Taliban seized power, making it illegal for girls to go to school. “For the next five years,” she says, “I dressed as a boy to escort my older sister, who was no longer allowed to be outside alone, to a secret school.” Risking severe repercussions, Shabana and her sister would take different routes to their secret school and cover their books in grocery bags so “it would seem we were just out shopping.”
Shabana went on to finish high school in the U.S. through the State Department’s Youth Exchange Studies program. She attended Middlebury College in Vermont, graduating magna cum laude in International Studies and Women & Gender Studies in 2011. In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from SOAS University of London.
While at Middlebury, Shabana won the Davis Peace Prize—with which she built wells in the outskirts of Kabul—and was selected as one of Glamour Magazine’s Top 10 College Women of 2010. She also received the Vermont Campus Compact 2011 Madeleine Kunin Public Service Award for outstanding leadership and service to others.
While still in college, Shabana co-founded SOLA—School of Leadership, Afghanistan. SOLA is the only all-girls Afghan boarding school. From 2016 through 2021, SOLA operated in Kabul; since 2021 and the Taliban’s return, SOLA has operated in Rwanda. SOLA aims to
“offer our students an environment where they can focus on their education and potential in a way that cannot be found anywhere else on Earth: a place where they’ll be challenged by a rigorous curriculum and encouraged to take on leadership roles at school and among each other.”
SOLA students painting a mural of Afghanistan on one of the walls at SOLA’s Kabul campus.
In March 2024, SOLA launched its online academy SOLAx, which brings app-based education to Afghan girls worldwide. As SOLAx came online, the school opened its 2024 admissions season which set a record for the most applications received in the school’s history. Shabana says, “If these girls can’t come to SOLA, we will find opportunities to bring SOLA to them.” SOLA received more than 5,000 applications from Afghan girls in 13 nations — and they will be able to enroll only 0.5% of the girls who applied. Currently, the school is constructing a new campus in Rwanda with the intention of opening its doors for the 2026 academic year.
In addition to leading SOLA, Shabana has also served as the National Gender Mainstreaming Advisor at the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development’s National Solidarity Program in Kabul. She was named one of National Geographic’s 2014 Emerging Explorers, and one of CNN International's Leading Women of 2014. She received the Asia Society’s Asia Game Changer Award in 2023 for her extensive work in connecting Asia and the world.
