AFSO Student Noor*

Noor was almost a doctor.

She had finished two years of a medical studies program at Balkh University in the northern province of Afghanistan when it became against the law to continue. Once a prominent place during the Golden Age of Sufism (and the birthplace of the poet Rumi), a center of Buddhism during the years of the Silk Road, and the home of the first sacred temple of the Zoroastrian Heart, in 2022 women were barred in Balkh province from studying medicine.

Never Giving Up

Noor's story about her first experience learning how to use a microscope, "The Day the Leaf Became a Universe," was made into an animated film by Afghans for Progressive Thinking.** In the video, Noor narrates her first encounter examining a green leaf with the scientific instrument donated by UNICEF.

This moment ignited her passion to become "someone who gives hope; someone who heals."

"How can anyone take a spark that lives in someone's soul?" Noor asks as she reckons with laws that prevent her from continuing to become a doctor.

Finding Afghan Female Student Outreach Online

Shortly after being banned from her university and through an internet search, Noor found AFSO as it was just getting off the ground with 175 Professors and academics volunteering to teach live classrooms online. From all over the world, AFSO affiliated teachers and scholars pitched in to help Noor and other Afghan women who were suddenly without the right to education. Today these AFSO university volunteers number 350.

Since 2024, Noor also completed credit-bearing coursework with the Global Higher Education Alliance (GHEA21).

Two years later, Noor is a GHEA Community Engagement fellow. Her project is developing online curriculum for girls over 12 living without the right to learn in her province. She focuses on offering English proficiency, chemistry, math, and biology online courses.

Noor is certain that one day Afghanistan will again be a society where female doctors can treat female patients.

Recently Noor earned a TOEFL score of 102 and was accepted into the Biological Sciences program at the University of Regina in Canada.

The logistics of visa applications, travel and financial costs make it impossible for her to attend.

In the fall, however, Noor is hoping to attend the Bard Global Degree program. It is a far different course from the one she initially charted, but it may still lead, one day, to her wearing a doctor's white coat.

For more information on how helping Afghan female students with the financial means to apply for visas and travel costs, please contact AFSO's Director of Development, Khushbu Srivastava at khushbu@afsousa.org.

co-written by Alexandra Lehmann

**Visit APT's website for more information on their 16 year mission to help Afghan girls and women by fostering leadership, dialogue, and education while improving mental health support through creative writing.

Over 60,000 women and girls have been impacted by APT's programs

*Name has been changed to protect identity.