Our vision

Today, I am here, I am brave.

We educate the girls who’ll change the world.

Our mission is, and always has been, to educate Afghan girls. Our vision is of a generation of compassionate and confident Afghan women with the leadership skills to rebuild Afghanistan and guide their homeland into a better future.

Educated women earn higher incomes, marry later in life, and have fewer and healthier children. Educated women raise educated girls who grow to become educated women themselves. Educated women will not allow their children to become extremists.

As our founder Shabana Basij-Rasikh has said: the secret to a peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan is no secret at all. It is educated girls.

It all begins here at SOLA.

How we do it.

We are a boarding school of Afghan girls in grades pre-6 through 10. From 2016 through 2021, we operated in Kabul; since 2021 and the Taliban’s return, we have operated in Rwanda.

We offer our students an environment where they can focus on their education and potential in a way that cannot be found anywhere else on Earth: a place where they’ll be challenged by a rigorous curriculum and encouraged to take on leadership roles at school and among each other.

In Kabul, we drew students from every ethnic group and nearly every province in Afghanistan, aiming to create a network of Afghan sisterhood stronger than any geographic or cultural barrier. This work continues in Rwanda, where we draw our new students from the Afghan diaspora, especially from communities forced from home by the Taliban’s return.

One day, when security allows, SOLA will return to Afghanistan. Yet even when that day comes, we intend to also maintain a campus in Rwanda where we will continue to educate girls from the diaspora.

Our commitment is to Afghan girls worldwide, and our goal is in our name.

In the Pashto language, the word "sola" means "peace." This is what we work toward, and this is what our students will help bring to Afghanistan.

“Don’t judge me on where I live, the dress I wear, the language I speak, the gender I have.

I am not anyone’s perspective.

You may not know my language, but I will learn any language to define myself as a girl.

I am not weak. I have passed thorn paths to dream of a bright future.”

—SOLA student, name withheld for security