When: Feb. 27, 2014 at noon
Where: HLS, Wasserstein Hall Room 2004
Shabana Basij-Rasikh did much of her learning under the Taliban. She traveled dressed as a boy and crammed into a crowded living room with a hundred other girls to receive an extremely rare–and extremely dangerous–education.
After the U.S. military invasion in 2001, a United States program called YES sent Shabana to Middlebury College in Vermont, where she graduated magna cum laude. She returned to Afghanistan to co-found the country’s first girl’s boarding and prep school with an American man, Ted Achilles. Ted had become disenchanted with the U.S. efforts to send young Afghans to foreign universities because, while Shabana was a success story, many students did not return to Afghanistan.
Join Shabana to discuss the challenges facing a pioneer in education: brain drain, student safety in an environment still hostile to women’s learning, and using education to create lasting Afghan and global stability.
This is an Armed Forces Association event sponsored by HLS WLA Women’s Venture Fund and cosponsored by Law and International Development Society.
Lunch will be provided.