Fighting for an Education by Yuki D.

I recently attended a program on Thursday January 8, at Lawrence Memorial Library for its One World Library Project about growing up in Afghanistan and the struggle to find education. The presenter was Shabana Basij-Rasikh, an Afghani Middlebury College student. During a time when women were not allowed to receive an education, Shabana fought against the Taliban rule by attending a “secret school.” Every day she would go to an older woman’s house acting as family and be taught all of her subjects. Shabana risked her life from ages six to eleven, ages where American children are frivolously playing and studying insignificant subjects.
After the United States overthrew the Taliban in 2002, Shabana was able to attended public schools. At age sixteen, she received a scholarship to study in the United States, where she spent her senior year in Wisconsin. Now, she is studying Women’s and Gender Studies and Middle Eastern Studies at Middlebury College. Shabana has managed to become a sophomore at a very prestigious liberal arts college at the age of only 18! That is even the age of some seniors here at Mount Abraham.
Ever since she began her studies at Middlebury, Shabana has been intent on giving back to her home Afghanistan. No matter where she goes and even if the reign of the Taliban was so horrific, Shabana insisted that Afghanistan would be her home no matter what. Last summer, she received money from the Davis Peace Project to drill wells in villages near her home. While in Wisconsin, Shabana was also able to help build a school in her home village. Now she is focused on getting enough money to open the first all-girls high school in her area of the country.
Shabana hopes to become a politician in the future, helping her home country. She believes that education is the answer to the women’s rights in her country. If they had only learned how to make money for themselves, they could become successful, independent women. She hopes that in the future even more girls from her country will choose to become educated and to fend for themselves.
This young woman’s talk about the value of her education made me reexamine how much I appreciate the ability to study freely in my own country. Not only does our society encourage children to go to school, they force it upon us. Personally, I think that I take my education for granted. I always complain about school, so hearing these stories about these children, girls especially, who fought and risked their lives in order to go to school made me appreciate my education and ability to attend school even more.
I wish that everyone who goes to school in the United States could hear what Shabana has to say. Everyone would think their education, and maybe they would take it more seriously. We should all make the best of our educations, even though it may be difficult, on a day to day basis. We have what many around the world fight for everyday, and if we all made the best of it, maybe we could help spread our good fortune.