"I run a school where future President of Afghanistan will hail from " Shaban proudly declares

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00:00 And maybe a future president.

00:02 [laughter]

00:04 Shabana Basij-Raseek, founder of SOLA, the School of Leadership of Afghanistan.

00:11 Thank you.

00:12 [applause]

00:20 Shabana, you shamelessly got the most applause, so you have to start.

00:25 [laughter]

00:27 I would like to hear stories of gender equality, positive ones, challenging ones.

00:33 Which story would you like to start with to tell our audience?

00:39 Thank you. Thank you, Femi. It's truly an honor and pleasure to be here.

00:44 I feel like everyone here knows that I run a school where the future presidents of Afghanistan will hail from.

00:54 So hence the applause.

00:59 I would like to talk about two specific challenges that we're facing today in Afghanistan.

01:05 One is an internal one and another one an external.

01:09 The internal one is the fact that Afghanistan today is the only country on planet Earth where girls' access to secondary education is illegal.

01:22 It's embarrassing and it's shameful for me to be uttering those sentences.

01:30 It should be alarming not just for people of Afghanistan but for all of us, for people of the world,

01:39 that a country like Afghanistan exists where girls are prohibited from exercising their most basic human right.

01:49 The second challenge that we're facing, an external one, is one where the world looks at Afghanistan

02:00 generalizing the views of Taliban on the population of the country,

02:09 meaning that there is a misconception that people in Afghanistan, especially men, fathers, brothers, are not ready to see girls in schools.

02:25 This is our second year here in Rwanda, meaning also second year of admission.

02:34 Once our call went out for this current admission season, for 25 spots that we have available in our incoming class of sixth graders,

02:45 we received 2,000 applications from Afghan girls across 20 countries all over the world.

02:54 That should tell you alone that families in Afghanistan, fathers, brothers, mothers, sisters,

03:02 they are ready to support the girls and their daughters at any cost.

03:08 Gender equality goals, what are you hoping for? What are you working towards? Shabana?

03:15 Two important priorities at the moment. One is to make sure that Afghan girls are able to come to Sola here in Rwanda

03:28 from anywhere in the world where they don't have access to education right now or have difficulty securing access

03:36 because they have left Afghanistan and are in various refugee situations and socioeconomic status or their visa status

03:48 prohibits them from continuing with their education.

03:53 But there are thousands and thousands of those girls who want to come here to Rwanda.

03:58 At the moment, we are one boarding school here and we can't naturally, and I say this with great heartbreak,

04:09 that we can't bring every single one of those girls who deserve an opportunity to come to Rwanda, to Sola, to study here.

04:17 We can't bring them. So we're now looking at ways to bring Sola to them, whether they're in Afghanistan or in other neighboring countries.

04:27 And more information on that we will share in the weeks and months to follow, but we're really working hard to make that happen.

04:36 The second priority for me is right now as you're sitting here, our Sola girls are also watching us online,

04:46 so it's an opportunity to say hello to them.

04:52 Sola is home to some of the most extraordinary Afghan girls that you will ever meet doing the most ordinary thing,

05:05 which is going to school.

05:07 And that is my ultimate goal, is to make sure that Afghan girls' access to education becomes the most ordinary thing for us.

05:18 [Applause]

05:23 Shabana, you are on the stage with one, two, three presidents and one head of a UN agency.

05:30 What do you need?

05:32 [Laughter]

05:36 Shabana.

05:37 I hope you don't regret asking.

05:39 I will never regret asking this.

05:43 I will start with saying I want you all here and everyone in this room to know that the problems and the threat and the dangers of terrorism

05:57 cannot be contained by any borders.

06:02 And the benefits of investment in girls' education also cannot be contained by any borders.

06:10 [Applause]

06:13 So don't look away from Afghanistan.

06:17 Don't look away from what's happening there.

06:19 It may seem physically far away, but the situation in Afghanistan should not, cannot and must not be acceptable to anyone, especially you.

06:34 [Applause]

06:35 (upbeat music)

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