Bard College Berlin News

Aisha Khurram ‘24 calls for the global community to "stand for Afghan girls’ right to education" in essay published by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees

Image Credit © UNESCO

On International Women’s Day 2023, current Bard College Berlin student Aisha Khurram published the essay “I had to flee for my education, but refused to leave other Afghan girls to their fate” for the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR). Khurram’s piece tells her story of leaving Afghanistan six days after the Taliban takeover in 2021 and arriving in Berlin, and calls on the international community to support educational opportunities for girls in Afghanistan.

She writes,

“Today, it is more urgent than ever to embrace the power of technology in order to mark a new era of education that goes beyond borders, an era that ensures young girls from refugee camps or those living in crisis situations can have equal access to education.

“On International Women’s Day, I’m calling on the international community to put its faith in education and, more importantly, in young women’s capacity for creativity and change, because these two forces when combined possess the power to illuminate the darkness and liberate humanity from the shackles of totalitarianism.”

Khurram, the 2019 Afghan Youth Representative to the UN, is a vocal activist on behalf of Afghan people. She is the regional leader of the Tertiary Refugee Student Network, a project member of the Voices of Afghan Students Across OSUN blog, and a project assistant with Kinderberg Organization in Afghanistan. Her TEDx Talk, “Afghanistan: not a lost cause” was released in September 2022.

To read Aisha’s essay, click here.

Post Date: 03-27-2023