Hard to Believe: One Girl's Story — and Why It's Ours to Care About Hard to believe. Those three words keep coming up as I think about what is happening to girls in Afghanistan right now. Hard to believe that in my lifetime, a girl could be told that her education ends at the primary school level, not because she lacks intelligence, drive, or dreams, but simply because of who she is. Hard to believe that somewhere right now, a girl who imagined herself as a doctor, a teacher, or a lawyer is...

I first set foot in Afghanistan in December, 2008. Traveling from Kabul airport in an embassy car, I felt as if I’d been transported back in time. The dusty streets were bustling with life: donkeys carrying fresh vegetables, men in traditional shalwar kameez going about their day, and women in blue burkas navigating the markets. It was the year 1385 in the lunar Hijri calendar, and everything around me seemed timeless and enduring. Then I began to meet the people, and from my earliest days...

by Hassina Sherjan Community Voices Fellow Hassina Sherjan shares the most important lesson she’s ever learned in her quest for Afghanistan’s future. When my father was on his deathbed, he said to me, “Live as you want to because I didn’t.” I was shocked. All my cultural, familial, and educational conditioning up to that point had taught me the opposite: to do what was expected of me. After my father’s passing, I committed myself to search for what I really wanted to do in this life. Two...