Sahar Education

Sahar Education is an international nonprofit organization, providing underground education and empowerment programs for Afghan girls and women, empowering and inspiring them and their families to build peaceful, thriving communities. It was founded in 2001 to build bridges of understanding between the U.S. and Afghanistan for peace and cooperation. After the Taliban takeover in 2021, extremists banned formal education for women and girls above 6th grade, leaving 1.1 million school-aged women and girls without access to formal education. Militants forced entire schools to shut down and most international organizations left the country. Sahar, however, stayed, quickly adapting its methods to the new circumstances. Remaining true to its mission, Sahar leveraged its established partners and local knowledge to start underground schools from scratch, building literacy, sewing and empowerment programs for women and girls in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif, as well as online education programs for women and girls across Afghanistan.