About Afghan Female Student Outreach
Afghan Female Student Outreach (AFSO) is an international collective of volunteer professors, teaching classes and building a pathway forward for university women in Afghanistan. We aim to educate university women at all levels who seek an academic bridge between their current situation and eventual enrollment in a degree-granting institution online or outside Afghanistan. Our long-term goal is to help educate the future leaders of Afghanistan, who will have the education and experience they need to help restore their country, and especially its women, if and when the regime changes. We are committed to recruiting and educating women from both dominant and underrepresented communities within Afghanistan.
The AFSO Story
In December 2022, 16 months after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, an emergency arose. More than 100,000 women had been summarily dismissed from their courses in universities at all levels, across the country. This ban followed the closure of schools to girls past the sixth grade. There ensued an epidemic of suicide and self-harm among the young women who were Afghanistan’s greatest hope, its potential future doctors, lawyers, leaders, artists, scientists, and writers.
A small group of professors in Connecticut stepped into this crisis. Working with the help of a volunteer—who later became AFSO’s first Executive Director—they identified and recruited students from Afghanistan who had been forced out of universities. That summer, Afghan Female Student Outreach began teaching courses in English, philosophy, political science, engineering, and mathematics to 75 women around Kabul. We encountered every sort of problem—differences in language ability, differences in academic culture, multiple pressures on our students, the aftermath of trauma, and the internet and electricity deficiencies that plague Afghanistan. By the end of that first term, our students made it clear that while they appreciated the learning, it was not enough. They wanted a future.
With the help of an anonymous donor, that fall AFSO was able to supply internet connection via mobile phone data to 125 students and hire an Executive Director. The news spread by word of mouth to students and professors alike. By Winter 2024, we had 150 students across Afghanistan and 24 professors across North America. By that summer, we had grown to 200 students, and our faculty was volunteering from institutions on four continents. When we reached 500 students and 50 instructors, we hired more administrative staff a Student Affairs Coordinator and an Academic Administrator—still our only paid staff.
Today, our student body stands at + 800 and our faculty at 185, plus 175 course assistants from universities in Europe, America, and Asia. Of our original students, almost 50% are still with AFSO. Others have gone on to enroll with scholarships at universities in South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and North America. Through our partnerships, we are now offering a clear pathway to the future for Afghan university women.
Shortly after AFSO began, one of our amazing students found herself on the verge of despair. “Please, professor,” she wrote, “do not alone me.” That plea has been our guiding light: to stay with our students through these difficult times, to offer them whatever we can provide, as educators, not to impose our goals on them, but to respond to their expressed hopes and needs. As the world presents challenges, we continue to grow and adapt. And with your help, we will see these indomitable young women become, one day, the new face of Afghanistan.
Rahman Azari, Professor
"The experience has been extremely rewarding. As much as I have taught them, I have learned more from them. As architecture students, they were excited to share with me not only the vernacular of their architecture, also how, as humans, they interacted with their buildings and their cities."
Eugenie Chenie, TA
"The evolution of the political situation in Afghanistan has pretty much broken my heart. . . . But what gives me hope is the growing number of students at AFSO, the growing number of professors, and hearing stories of girls who’ve gotten scholarships. This lust for education will go on from them, from generation to generation."
Shaista, Student
"I am writing to thank you for your efforts and to the AFSO team to say how they are always helping us with every step toward our education. I know most of these steps are unseen to us, but we Afghan girls never forget how AFSO turned on the light in our heart in the darkest moment. "