According to SOLA officials, the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA) inaugurated its permanent campus in Rwanda in 2024, marking a significant milestone for Afghan girls’ education. The campus, which began classes this month, is not visible from outside the compound, and its location is closely guarded for safety reasons, according to SOLA officials. Shabana Basij-Rasikh, founder of SOLA, stated, “That’s exactly what this place represents for us – a permanent home for our girls. I’m so grateful for the welcome that we have received.” SOLA’s relocation and new beginnings in Rwanda Following the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan and the Taliban’s return to power, Basij-Rasikh and SOLA’s students and faculty relocated to Rwanda. The Rwandan government extended an invitation to the school, enabling approximately 100 recent graduates and faculty, along with all enrolled students, to move. According to SOLA, classes resumed four days after their arrival in Rwanda, initially at a hotel serving as a temporary school. Basij-Rasikh said, “One of the things that really deeply inspires all of us is that these girls – they will never give up. It’s just not part of their vocabulary or thinking.” Millions of Afghan girls excluded from education: UN and Taliban statements According to an August 2023 report by the United Nations, approximately 2.4 million Afghan girls are excluded from secondary education in Afghanistan. The report noted that conditions for Afghan women and girls have continued to deteriorate since the Taliban’s return to power. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also condemned the ongoing restrictions, calling for immediate restoration of girls’ access to education. Prior to the Taliban’s takeover, the group stated that girls would have access to education, employment, and public participation, provided these activities aligned with its interpretation of Islamic principles. However, in 2021, the Taliban barred girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade, a restriction that remains in effect. In August 2023, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said Afghanistan pays “significant attention” to education, with more than 10 million students—about 25 percent of the population—currently enrolled in schools, universities, and institutes. The Taliban has stated it is working to establish conditions under which girls and women can attend classes in line with Islamic Sharia laws. The United Nations and international rights organizations have disputed the adequacy of these measures, citing ongoing barriers for girls. Basij-Rasikh noted that the 122 girls enrolled at SOLA celebrate their opportunity to learn, while also mourning that girls and women in Afghanistan face “very different futures,” including child marriage. Expanding access through online education SOLA’s faculty have long been concerned about the number of potential students they have had to turn away since the school opened as a girls’ boarding school in Kabul in 2016. According to SOLA, thousands of Afghan girls from around the world apply annually to become SOLA students. Despite the new campus in Rwanda doubling enrollment, more than 99 percent of applications will still be rejected, according to SOLA. To address this, SOLA created an online education platform, School of Leadership, Afghanistan Extension (SOLAx), which allows students to learn at their own pace using a smartphone. Basij-Rasikh and her husband, Mati Amin, co-founder of SOLAx and an educational technology entrepreneur, developed SOLAx to offer online classes based on the Afghan school curriculum for grades 6 through 12 via WhatsApp. Amin said, “We understood the political and technological realities on the ground. We knew we had to innovate in the space.” He added that most Afghan girls do not have their own smartphones and often borrow them from family members. Many also lack reliable internet access and uninterrupted study time due to household responsibilities. However, WhatsApp is widely used for communication, making it a practical platform for SOLAx. The platform, launched in 2024, now has 41,000 students, mostly in Afghanistan but also in 76 other countries, according to SOLA. The platform includes built-in precautions, such as the ability to quickly delete chats and resume studies using a PIN code. Lessons for earlier grades are taught in Dari and Pashto, while later grades are taught in English. Student records are stored on SOLAx, in part because Basij-Rasikh was forced to destroy all of SOLA’s records before leaving Afghanistan to prevent the Taliban from identifying families who had educated their daughters. Basij-Rasikh said, “I carry that fire and the flames of that with me to this day. I remember feeling so much anger… And it felt like one of the moments where you have no idea the kind of fire you have started. This fire is going to come around and burn you one day.” International support and future ambitions SOLAx and all programs offered by SOLA are free of charge and funded by donors worldwide. Dame Louise Richardson, former head of the University of Oxford and current president of the Andrew Carnegie Foundation, said Basij-Rasikh’s dedication to Afghan girls’ education was evident during her studies at Oxford. Richardson stated, “The young women who are leaving their family, their country and everything they know, to travel to Rwanda for an education are paying a high price for their education. I believe they are truly worthy of our support.” Haven Ley, chief strategy officer at Pivotal Ventures, said Basij-Rasikh’s 2016 launch of SOLA in Afghanistan attracted the attention of philanthropist Melinda French Gates. In 2024, French Gates selected Basij-Rasikh as one of 12 leaders to receive $20 million each to grant to charities supporting women and girls. Basij-Rasikh said she directed the funds to other Afghan civil society organizations, most of which operate in exile. Basij-Rasikh emphasized, “The reality is that we can’t do this work alone. We need a robust ecosystem of organizations that could address different aspects of the need in Afghanistan when it comes to girls and women, because it is enormous.” She added that these organizations, including SOLA, are not “waiting passively” to return to Afghanistan. “We have a mission to get ourselves back into Afghanistan. The Afghan girls that we prepare in exile, they will be the ones who lead.” With the opening of the school in Rwanda, Basij-Rasikh said she feels closer to her goal of ensuring that SOLA’s future extends beyond her own leadership. She continues to take security precautions, recalling that the Taliban had threatened her life while she was in Afghanistan, but said those threats no longer worry her. “We are ready,” Basij-Rasikh said. “We’re ready to be better known than we are. We’re ready to get this message out to the world, and to Afghan families and to Afghan girls. We are here. And we will always be here.”