Shabana basij-rasikh biography for kids
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News Detail - Magazine
On June 11, the Fay community welcomed Shabana Basij-Rasikh as Fay’s 2022 Commencement speaker. Shabana is a 2011 magna cum laude graduate of Middlebury College with a degree in International Studies and Women & Gender Studies, and she holds a Master in Public Policy degree from Oxford University. In 2016, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from SOAS University of London; in 2019, she received an honorary doctorate from Cedar Crest College in Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including being named as one of CNN International's Leading Women of 2014, one of National Geographic's 2014 Emerging Explorers, and a member of the 2019 Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in the social entrepreneurship sector. In 2018, she was awarded the Malalai Medal, one of Afghanistan's highest national honors, for her work in promoting girls' access to education. She is the founder and president of School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA), the only girls&
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Shabana Basij-Rasikh
Afghanistan
Master of Public Policy (MPP)
St Antony's College, Oxford
Funding: Oxford-Weidenfeld and Hoffmann-Rausing/Abraham
Born and raised in Kabul, Shabana graduated magna cum laude in International Studies and Women & Gender Studies from Middlebury College in 2011. While still in college, Shabana co-founded the School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA), her nation’s first and only all-girls boarding school.
Since graduating from Oxford University, Shabana is focusing her efforts on growing SOLA as well as raising awareness for the 130 million girls out of school today. Shabana is a global ambassador for Girl Rising, a call to action seeking investment in girls’ education worldwide. She received the Malalai Medal, one of Afghanistan’s highest national honors, in 2018; is the holder of two honorary doctorates (SOAS University of London, 2016; Cedar Crest College, 2019); and in 2019 was named to the Forbes 30 beneath 30 Asia list as a social entrepreneu
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Shabana Basij-Rasikh
Born and raised in Kabul, Afghanistan, Shabana Basij-Rasikh (MPP 2019) was just six years old when the Taliban seized power, banning girls’ education and forbidding women from going out in public without a male chaperone. For the next six years, Shabana’s parents sent her and her sisters to a secret school, facing the risk of severe repercussions in the case of an encounter with the authorities. “There were a few close calls, and I used to beg my parents not to make us go to school,” Shabana says. “It wasn’t until later that I realised the immense sacrifices my parents made for me to receive an education.”
At the age of 15, Shabana gained a place on a one-year study exchange programme in the US. She was struck by the way that girls in the US could take their education for granted, and wanted Afghan girls to have this same level of certainty for their future. This experience planted the seeds of her future work as the founder of the School of Leadership, Afg