We established our scholarship program in late 2015. From 2016 to date, we have provided 1200 scholarships to at-risk youth (see table below), mostly girls, in elementary to high schools, in the marginalized and persecuted Hazara communities in Afghanistan. 749 girls have benefitted from our scholarship program. Over the years, many of our students have graduated and have moved on to obtain admissions in major colleges and universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India and Bangladesh.

Despite many of our educators fleeing the country after the collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021, we connected with new partners on the ground and discreetly continued our scholarship program based on the local dynamics of the areas our schools and programs are located. Soon after their takeover, the Taliban banned girls and women from schools, employment and running businesses. To counter the ban and despite enormous risks, our community leaders came up with creative ideas to continue a pathway for girls’ edcuation. In some areas, our educators obtained conditional approval from their local government to allow girls to continue their education - mainly, via segregated classes for girls with women teachers only. In other areas, our educators founded underground schools to provide access for girls to continue their education. For safety reasons, we do not disclose the names of our schools and educators at the moment.

Here is a brief breakdown of our scholarships since the inception of the the program in 2016:

We are enormously grateful to our partners and supporters for their generous support to help make education accessible for girls from Afghanistan’s most at-risk community, the Hazaras. Our work wouldn’t have been possible without the generous grants, matching funds and gifts from our partners Global Giving, Gould Family, Michael Metrinko, George and Rohina Liu, Dave Lee and many others.

We have continuously posted quarterly updates via our projects on Global Giving:

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/scholarships-for-at-risk-afghan-youth/

Click ‘Reports’

For Girls’ Education:

https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/supporting-girls-education-in-afghanistan/

Click ‘Reports’