Editor’s Note: The names Intika and H.A. are pseudonyms the sources requested due to concerns about their safety. The source Shadmana asked to be referred to by her first name only to protect her privacy.

At Archer, a normal school day can consist of laughter in the Zeller Student Center, music flowing through the halls and students studying with friends in the sunlit courtyard. For over two million Afghan girls and young women, that kind of normalcy disappeared five years ago — but a volunteer-run organization is striving to rebuild it, one online class at a time. 

According to UNESCO, school enrollment for girls in Afghanistan surged from 2001 to 2021, and the literacy rate increased from 17% to 30% for women across all age groups. However, in 2021, the Taliban returned to power and made formal education above the secondary level inaccessible to girls and women ages 12 and up. 

As of 2025, UNESCO reports that nearly 2.2 million Afghan girls and women are prohibited from attending school. In response to these restrictions, advocates and organizations have stepped in to cultivate opportunities for them to continue learning in alternative educational communities.

Victory Afghanistan is an entirely volunteer-run nonprofit that offers online education to female students in over 20 different Afghan provinces. The organization’s website states that they “envision a future where educated Afghan girls and women become the architects of change in their lives.” 

Victory Afghanistan was founded in 2023 by four Afghan women, one of whom is H.A. According to H.A., the nonprofit’s current focus is supporting Afghan girls’ education due to the greater need at this time. However, Victory Afghanistan hopes to one day provide this education for both men and women.

“Women and men need to be educated in society. So, for the future of Victory Afghanistan, our goal is to provide more facilities,” H.A. said. “Our aim is young generation, women and men, both.” 

A key part of Victory Afghanistan’s program is working with volunteers around the world to provide unique opportunities for Afghan girls and women to learn English and improve their speaking skills. One of these volunteers, Intika, is the English program manager, safeguarding manager and community development manager. The English Language Learning Classes that Victory Afghanistan offers include six different levels, ranging from ABCs through Advanced. 

According to Intika, each level scaffolds the students to expand their language, grammar and speaking skills. They start from the basic fundamentals of English and progress until students are learning how to enrich their academic soft skills. Intika includes debates in Victory Afghanistan’s English curriculum as a supplemental activity where students can discuss topics that impact their day-to-day lives. 

“I have seen these girls hold space for each other’s opinion while being so respectful, so logical, so on the point that I have never seen any debate — in all my time at Victory Afghanistan — tip to one side,” Intika said. “If I went into the classroom knowing how I feel about this debate topic, when I came out of the classroom, I did not know how I feel about the debate topic.” 

Another volunteer, Laura Yumi Snell, is the California-based, Founding Artistic Producer of SoHo Shakespeare Company, or “SoHo Shakes.” Snell said she had always wanted to help support education in Afghanistan, so when a Victory Afghanistan administrator reached out to ask if she would like to become a volunteer acting teacher, Snell agreed.

“I, first of all, love learning about different cultures and making friends with people that I typically wouldn’t cross paths with,” Snell said. “Secondly, here was this incredible opportunity to meet a dozen young, brilliant women who are so creative and so wonderful.”

Victory Afghanistan students with advanced English levels can join the Mentorship Program, in which they are connected to a working professional that can help support them as they embark on their educational journey and beyond. Shadmana is a Mentorship Program student who has been working with Victory Afghanistan for over three years, and she is now teaching English to other students as well. Shadmana said she has learned a lot from this experience.

“I gained a lot of confidence, and … I feel like learning is always from both ways,” Shadmana said. “Even though I teach English, I gained a lot of knowledge from my students, and even though I am so much younger than my students, they were super nice to me.”

After students complete the Mentorship Program, Victory Afghanistan provides three pathways: online higher education, university degrees abroad and different internships. One of the core values of Victory Afghanistan is helping cultivate a future where women are able to become leaders and use education as a tool to better their communities.

“Women’s education plays a very critical role in society,” H.A. said. “Education and knowledge is something that is one of the rights for a human that they can receive, they can earn, and they should receive this … we can start from this point to provide education facilities or services for women and girls.”

For Intika, it is very important to foster and build confidence in all community members of Victory Afghanistan, especially students who might be less familiar with English. She said that learning English can supply students with many more opportunities.

“I had completed English throughout high school. I knew every bit of English. In fact, I went on to pursue an English program, and yet, I was intimidated,” Intika said. “That is the intimidation that I wanted to dissolve through this program, where I want the students to feel that, ‘No, English is my tool. I don’t have to live up to English’s expectations. It has to live up to mine to help me express myself.’” 

As part of her acting class, Snell implemented several tools and practices to help the students’ confidence grow through their creativity. She worked with Victory Afghanistan’s leadership team to create a 20-week drama course, where students chose to put together a performance of an excerpt from “The Arabian Nights”. 

“Most of them had never acted before but loved movies and wanted to pursue this new creative path, so we started with … a lot of warm-up exercises, which were also designed to build their technique both as actors and also as public speakers,” Snell said. “They also were great tools for building confidence and vocal projection, articulation, all these things that are going to also help them become better communicators.”

Despite ongoing challenges, like unstable internet and limited access to financial resources, Victory Afghanistan has been able to make a meaningful impact on its students. Shadmana said she is grateful for the education she has received through Victory Afghanistan and hopes that one day, these opportunities will be available to more Afghan girls and women.

“They’re at home, and they don’t have access to laptops or Wi-fi and internet and stuff like that,” Shadmana said. “I’m just so grateful that I come from a great family that I can have those opportunities for me, and I’m also super grateful that I can help my students … I learned to have a lot of hope, and I feel like hope and love can keep us alive.”