Reem Djebli/ Wise Afghanistan/ San Francisco, USA
WISE Afghanistan is a non-profit organization based in Kabul, Afghanistan that works to empower marginalized women in the country by providing them the tools they need to live healthy, successful lives. WISE’s pillars include healthcare advancement, youth empowerment, education, and human rights advocacy. It operates with the value of community building and empowerment at its core. Since its founding in 2013, it has provided over 7,000 women with health and educational resources throughout Afghanistan. In addition to providing these resources, WISE has also established a center that educates women and girls in Kandahar, Afghanistan – a region where over two-thirds of girls are not enrolled in school today.
Alia Rasoully, a first-generation Afghan-American woman founded WISE in August of 2013, when she was still an undergraduate student at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Ms. Rasoully created the organization intending to create deep connections between the passionate minds at WISE and the women in the communities they were going to work with. As head of the organization, she does her best to ensure that all employees and volunteers at WISE are doing work that is aligned with the visions of liberation that the women and girls in these communities hold. Given the often charged and Islamophobic discourse surrounding women’s education in the region occupying the media, Ms. Rasoully’s endeavors in education are crafted with the regional cultural and religious context of where they are to be implemented in mind.
It is due to that very sentiment that I have chosen to do my summer internship with WISE. In my discussions with Ms. Rasoully, she made it clear that the work I will be doing in the coming months is in line with the principles of the communities I will be working with. It is, unfortunately, a rare find in the non-profit sector to find an organization that centers the viewpoints of Afghan women in the fight for education, so this opportunity is one I cherish greatly. This summer, I will be conducting a research project into the ways that religious and cultural texts and practices have been incorporated into feminist organizing for education in Southwest Asia. After this initial research has been gathered, I will begin a series of interviews with the women and girls WISE is connected to within Afghanistan, to gain insight into what they view as a liberated education model. This work will culminate into a policy proposal for officials in Kabul to view. The ultimate goal of my work is to elevate the voices of these women so that their dreams of Afghan-centric, empowering education are centered in conversations about how best to create such educational environments.