The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021, and stopped girls and women from attending classes until there could be a “safe learning environment”. However, that is not deterring girls from seeking education and learning. A plethora of brave Afghan women has been attending underground online and offline classes under Project Soraya and Code to Inspire.
Pashtana Durrani has worked extensively to educate children, especially girls in the rural areas of Afghanistan, since 2017. Even with the Taliban takeover, Durrani has continued providing girls opportunities for learning through her charity LEARNAfg.
She has set up online as well as offline classes for STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) subjects on tablets. Around 100 teenage girls are attending these online and offline classes in southern Afghanistan, a news portal has revealed.
“We started a GoFundMe page and gathered some funds to buy tablets and pay the teachers. It’s all underground. Nothing is through banks or money transfers. It's all in cash,” Durrani told TRTWorld. “I lost hope when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, I lost the will to live, but then when I think of my students and how motivated they are to seek education despite the challenges, it helps me keep going,” she adds.
Around 60 per cent of the 3.7 million Afghan children out of school are girls, according to United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF). Girls and women are anxious about their future with the reputation that the Taliban set for itself the last time it ruled Afghanistan.
Academy Fereshteh Forough’s Code to Inspire in Herat teaches young women coding skills to empower them financially and socially. It used to have offline classes but they are continuing to teach online in well encrypted virtual classrooms. They have given laptops and internet packages to 100 students as of now.
The academy has given laptops and internet packages to about 100 students so far. Code to Inspire offers to teach game design, mobile applications, web development and graphic design as well as blockchain and cryptocurrency.
“By teaching them coding and other complementary skills, such as graphic design, they begin a path towards financial independence and help narrow the economic and educational gender gap in Afghanistan,” she said. “I came across girls who have never touched a computer, been online or had a basic phone. Now they are creating websites, games and mobile apps,” Forough adds.