It’s a powerful thing to know you’re reading these words. It’s a powerful thing to be able to share these thoughts with you, and I’m going to tell you why.

December 31, 2019 doesn’t just mark the end of a year. It marks the end of a decade.

So think back. Where were you on January 1, 2010? What were you doing? What were you dreaming?

I’ll tell you where I was. I was on winter break. I was in college. SOLA was only a couple of years old. We were small by necessity, but we dreamed big. I dreamed big.

But would I have dreamed, as a college student in 2010, that in 2019 I’d be delivering a college commencement address? That I’d be given the incredible honor of being named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list as a social entrepreneur? That our school – our school with only a handful of students – would be, in 2019, a school of nearly 80 girls in grades 6-9, coming to us from 25 different provinces?

I don’t know if I would’ve. But I know that you’ve been with us to see all of this come to pass.

And now here we are on the edge of a new decade. These are uncertain times in Afghanistan; you don’t need me to tell you that.

So instead, let me ask you: are you a fan of the band U2? If you are, you probably know where I’m going with this – but even if you’re not, you might be familiar with a song of theirs that has this refrain: “Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.”

It’s an interesting lyric, isn’t it? You can interpret it several different ways.

Maybe it’s meant to be bleak: maybe it’s meant to suggest that no matter what we do, no matter how hard we try, there’s no chance of success. A new year comes and nothing is different. Nothing will ever be different. Nothing changes with the flip of a calendar page. And nothing ever will.

Maybe that’s what the band’s trying to say – but I don’t think so.

Last year, I wrote a letter to The New York Times. You can read it here, but I want to break out one paragraph in particular:

As founder of my country’s first and only boarding school for girls, I know that education will be a critical driver of the future we as Afghans will build for ourselves. This future cannot be imposed from the outside; it must rise organically from the bottom up. I’m only one of the many Afghan women and men, young and old, who are working and sacrificing to create this new tomorrow, and we will not be deterred.

The truth of those words hasn’t changed.

Our commitment to the safety of our students, our faculty, our community – that hasn’t changed.

Our ambition to grow to become a school of grades 6-12 with girls coming to our campus from all 34 provinces – that hasn’t changed.

Our purpose, our drive, and our gratitude for you, the person reading these words, has not and will not change.

Nothing changes on New Year’s Day.

And that’s a hopeful thought as we stand where we stand, on the edge of a decade.

You’re standing here with us.

Thank you for the time past and for the time to come.

Happy New Year.