Pashtana Durrani
Founder · Kandahar / United States
Raised in a family that prioritized education despite displacement, Durrani returned to Afghanistan in 2016. She founded LEARN after discovering the lack of educational access for her cousins and other girls in rural districts. Since the 2021 Taliban takeover, she has continued her work from exile as a scholar at Wellesley and Harvard, while managing the underground school network remotely.
Expanding digital school access to every girl in Afghanistan regardless of political barriers.
In her words
“Lack of education wasn't a byproduct of poverty; it was a weapon.”