PresidentSchool of Leadership Afghanistan
Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the co-founder and president of the School of Leadership, Afghanistan
(SOLA). SOLA is the first and only boarding school for Afghan girls, operating in Kabul from 2016 through the summer of 2021 and the Taliban’s return to power. That August, Shabana led the evacuation of her entire school community from Afghanistan to Rwanda, where SOLA has reestablished its operations and its students have resumed their studies.
Shabana is a magna cum laude graduate of Middlebury College and earned her Master in Public
Policy from Oxford University; she also holds honorary doctorates from SOAS University of
London and Cedar Crest College. In 2018, Shabana was awarded the Malalai Medal, one of Afghanistan's highest national honors, for her work in promoting girls' access to education. In 2019, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia list in the social entrepreneurship sector; in 2021, The Washington Post named her a contributor to their Global Opinions section.
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