“To evade the Taliban, Shabana Basij-Rasikh went to school disguised as a boy, taking different paths to avoid detection and covering her books to make them look like the Koran. Now at 24, she is on yet another mission: to make education attainable for all Afghan girls. In 2008, Basij-Rasikh started a boarding school with four girls. Today, the school has 35 students and has helped 40 girls get scholarships to boarding schools and universities in five different countries, with scholarships amounting to $7.7 million.

‘In some parts of the country… once girls reach puberty, they don't leave the house,’ says Basij-Rasikh, who attended high school and college in the U.S. and hopes that her boarding school model can be replicated in conflict and post-conflict countries. ‘She cooks and cleans and irons. If you take that girl from that household and put her in a boarding school, all of a sudden you buy several hours of her day that she can use to focus on herself and her personal development.’” -- via Half the Sky

Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the President and Co-Founder of SOLA—School of Leadership, Afghanistan, a nonprofit that helps exceptional young Afghan women access education worldwide and jobs back home -- to learn more about their work, visit http://www.sola-afghanistan.org/

At the TEDxWomen forum, Shabana spoke about her personal struggle for an education and how she plans to help even more girls follow their dreams through education. To learn more about her captivating story, you can listen to her TED talk at http://bit.ly/1jyGOkd. National Geographic also recently featured a profile about Shabana at http://bit.ly/1qyFu6n

For two books for young readers about girls and the power of education, we recommend "Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan" for ages 6 and up (http://www.amightygirl.com/nasreens-secret-school) and "A Girl Called Problem" for ages 9 to 14 (http://www.amightygirl.com/a-girl-called-problem).

For more books to help children understand the struggle for girls' access to education in many parts of the world, check out our blog post "Honoring Malala: Mighty Girl Books on Children's Fight for Education" at http://www.amightygirl.com/blog/?p=4057

For a wonderful autobiography of a real-life Mighty Girl who challenged gender discrimination in her country, check out Malala Yousafzai's book, "I Am Malala," recommended for ages 14 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/i-am-malala -- or, for younger readers, the recently released "I Am Malala Young Readers Edition" for ages 10 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/i-am-malala-youth-edition

For a highly recommended book for older teens and adults that discusses how girls and women are fighting back against oppression and transforming their communities, check out: "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" at http://www.amightygirl.com/half-the-sky

Thanks to Half the Sky by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn for sharing Shabana's story!