This wonderful talk made me laugh and cheer out loud more than once, here at my desk. Sakena Yacoobi talks about the transformative power of education in Afghanistan, and demonstrates what is possible when someone believes in her calling and faces the world bravely and with compassion. A must-see.
Sakena Yacoobi: How I Stopped the Taliban from Closing My School
About Sakena Yacoobi:
Sakena Yacoobi is executive director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an Afghan women-led NGO she founded in 1995. After the Taliban closed girls’ schools in the 1990s, AIL supported 80 underground home schools for 3,000 girls in Afghanistan. Now, under Yacoobi’s leadership, AIL works at the grassroots level to empower women and bring education and health services to poor women and girls in rural and urban areas, serving hundreds of thousands of women and children a year through its training programs, Learning Centers, schools and clinics in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Yacoobi is the founder of the Afghan Institute of Learning, the Professor Sakena Yacoobi Private Hospital in Herat, the Professor Sakena Yacoobi Private High Schools in Kabul and the radio station Meraj in her hometown of Herat, Afghanistan.
From the TED website: http://www.ted.com/speakers/sakena_yacoobi Accessed Nov. 1, 2015