Oprah’s Angel Network

Dr. Sakena Yacoobi takes advantage of a teachable moment with a student at a Women's Learning Center in Afghanistan.

William Vazquez; Maternal Health Initiative via Abbott Fund

During the Taliban’s oppressive regime—one in which women were treated as property and denied the right to receive an education—young girls and teachers quietly and carefully congregated in about 80 underground schools throughout Afghanistan.

Behind this daring educational counterinsurgency in the late ’90s was Dr. Sakena Yacoobi, a long-time advocate for empowering Afghan women, and a hero around the world to those who cheer on her efforts to liberate a population suffering from years of war and high rates of illiteracy.

Education the Great Liberator

As founder and executive director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), Sakena has helped run 150 Women’s Learning Centers in eight provinces of Afghanistan. She works closely with community leaders in villages who share in the effort needed to establish and maintain the centers. Her organization employs nearly 500 Afghans, and it is considered a model example of how to lift up the country by empowering its women.

Sakena was born in Herat, Afghanistan, before she came to the United States at age 16. As a child, she watched her mother lose 11 of her 16 children during or soon after pregnancy. The experience impacted the arc of her life. “As a little girl when I grew up in Afghanistan I saw women suffering,” Sakena said. “Women were abused, women were violated and as a result I always wanted to work with women and children, and that is one thing that is really pushing me.”

Once in the United States, Sakena devoured her educational opportunities. She received a Ph.D. in public health and became a professor teaching math, biology and psychology. But she set aside her successful career to address the deteriorating situation in her home country. Her initial efforts focused on helping Afghan refugees in Pakistan, who had been displaced by the ongoing battle between Soviet invaders and the mujaheddin rebels. She worked with an NGO to educate 15,000 students in refugee camps in Peshawar, and set up her first learning center there.

When the Soviets finally conceded defeat, Afghans were hungry for a sense of order, and the Taliban’s traditional, authoritarian beliefs filled the country’s leadership vacuum—bringing with them extremist Islamic views that relegated women to chattel.

In response, Sakena established her organization in 1995 and slowly, from village to village, began establishing schools and health clinics. When the Taliban fell at the end of 2001, AIL shuttered its underground schools and began a rapid expansion, building women’s centers, establishing preschools and opening a post-secondary school, the Gawhar Shad University. The impact on thousands of women began to be felt, and now AIL touches the lives of more than 350,000 women and children each year.

Embracing the Culture

AIL’s Women’s Learning Centers serve two main functions. In villages where public schools don’t exist, the centers operate as regular schools, teaching young girls through an interactive educational approach that favors critical thinking over the traditional rote memorization once practiced. In villages where public schools already exist, the centers work with older girls and women who couldn’t go, or didn’t go, to school when they were younger. The women receive basic education, as well as instruction in sewing, rug weaving, health education, teacher training and they can participate in leadership workshops about human rights and democracy.

For Sakena, the transformation she sees in these women motivates her to carry on despite the ongoing security risks associated with a resurgent Taliban and the general lawlessness of a post-conflict region.

“I see women who come to the program who are not able to speak, who are very shy and are crying constantly because of the war,” said Sakena. “In a matter of two to three weeks, they are completely different human beings. They talk, they laugh, they joke—they are ready to go.”

Besides getting the support of local community leaders, Sakena’s programs are successful because she understands the culture and religion. She is not viewed as an outsider. As a follower of Islam, Sakena brings a moderate reading of the Koran to her classes, and often cites verses that support women’s rights.

“Women of Afghanistan cannot be like Western women,” she said. “Afghanistan is a tradition-laden society with sensitive cultural issues … Lots of times you hear that Islam is preventing women from getting an education, or that Islam is preventing women from going outside. But the reality is that … Islam is a religion that says men and women can stand side by side and study and learn.”

Sakena briefly returned to the United States in March 2009 to receive the fourth annual Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership, which included a $250,000 grant to help strengthen AIL’s programs.

To watch Sakena in action, check out this YouTube video: