If you want to know what determination looks like, meet Shabana Basij-Rasikh. Sh
By Melindagates · October 12, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
If you want to know what determination looks like, meet Shabana Basij-Rasikh.
Shabana was six years old when the Taliban first seized power 30 years ago and banned girls in Afghanistan from attending school. Undeterred, she continued her education in secret schools across Kabul, then went on to graduate magna cum laude from Middlebury College in Vermont and earn a master’s degree in public policy from Oxford.
But Shabana didn’t stop at pursuing her own education. While still in college, she co-founded SOLA, Afghanistan’s first boarding school for girls, which attracted students from nearly every province in the country.
I’ve been honored to get to know Shabana through Pivotal’s Global Leaders initiative, which provides visionary changemakers with funds to support work they believe in, and I couldn’t think of a more important person to interview for International Day of the Girl. She knows exactly what’s at stake when girls are denied an education—and what’s possible when they can get one. #InternationalDayoftheGirl