After fleeing Afghanistan to continue educating girls, SOLA opens a permanent school in Rwanda

September 2, 2026 - 11:42

Three years after the Taliban banned girls from secondary education in Afghanistan, the school she founded has opened a permanent campus in Kigali. It is a quiet but firm answer to those who said Afghan girls would never learn again.

SOLA started in 2016 as a small boarding school in Kabul. When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Basij-Rasikh and her team moved the entire school, students and staff, out of the country within weeks. They landed in Rwanda, where the government offered temporary shelter. For two years, the school operated from a rented property. Now, with support from private donors and the Rwandan government, it has a permanent home.

The new campus sits on a green hill outside Kigali. It has classrooms, dormitories, a library, and a science lab. Around 120 girls are enrolled, most of them from Afghanistan. They study a full curriculum, including math, literature, and computer science, alongside leadership and ethics. The school also admits a small number of Rwandan students, so the Afghan girls learn alongside local peers.

Basij-Rasikh, who grew up under the first Taliban regime and secretly attended a neighborhood school, says the move is not about giving up on Afghanistan. It is about keeping the promise alive. She notes that the school's name still says Afghanistan, and that will not change. The goal remains to prepare these girls to rebuild their country when the time comes.

For now, the girls are safe. They study, play sports, and argue about homework like any teenagers. But they carry a heavy awareness of what they left behind. Many have sisters or cousins who cannot go to school. Some have family members who fled to Iran or Pakistan. The school tries to keep them connected to their roots, with Afghan language classes and cultural events.

The permanent campus is a statement of endurance. It says that even if a government bans education, education will find a way. Basij-Rasikh puts it simply: "We did not flee to hide. We moved to continue."