“It Was Our Second Home”

by Ellis Chung

On March 23, 2022, the Taliban officially banned girls in Afghanistan from attending school past the 6th grade. While most people’s first concern is how this will impact these girls’ futures in Afghanistan, we must not overlook the social and emotional impact of this dark reality. Nabila (age 21) and Hamida (age 26) have been grappling with their loss of education since August 2021, when the Taliban first took control of Afghanistan.

To Nabila, school is “where I can acknowledge, improve my ambitions, and rebuild to protect myself from trauma.” With this loss, however, she says, “Our self-confidence is destroyed. We lost the courage to speak up. When the Taliban closed schools, I felt like I died.” Hamida, as a student and teacher of young children, has seen the debilitating effects of the ban from all angles: “They’re suffering from a terrible situation; they are depressed - not feeling well.” For her, the most significant loss was friends. “In school, I competed with my friends to get the first position and be the top student. The entertainment, the fun that we had, I really miss spending my life with my friends to go out and be at school,” she reminisced.

However, while the Taliban has made accessing education difficult, girls in Afghanistan are finding new ways to educate themselves. Hamida expressed how “some of the teachers… make courses at their houses to continue teaching students.” The girls discovered B-CC High School’s summer journalism class through a network of siblings and friends. It gave them an opportunity to reclaim the education that was so swiftly taken from them.

“It’s difficult for me to say how hard everything has been,” Hamida said, “What the Taliban did to us was unforgivable and unforgettable.” While these changes have shocked daily life, girls in Afghanistan are not giving up. Even through the Taliban’s heavy regulations and enforcement, they continue their search for knowledge.

Schoolis a place that makes the future of a person. School is a place that makes the future of a country. School is a place that makes the world. School is the future maker of the entire young generation. School is a place where a person finds his place and value.

The world understands that in school we learn to study, write and educate. School teaches us how to live. School makes us a future. School makes us professors. School makes us doctors. In school, we learn to live in the world.

School is the place to complete a person’s life and a person needs school and a country needs school. School is the most valuable place in the world. When we say school, the first words that come to our mind are knowledge and learning. We are the first steps. I start my life from school. School is a place of education. School is our second home. School is a place that brings people closer to their goals. School is a place of knowledge and culture.

School holds an intrinsic value to the life of an individual and greater society. Human dignity depends on science and knowledge; if there is no school to learn, it would be impossible to know the truth. Since the beginning of human civilization, the road to progress has been paved by means of education. The only difference between an intellectual and illiterate is the opportunity to learn.

The level of development and prosperity of societies can be measured by their literacy rates; Any society that has a high cultural and scientific level will live with security, progress, development and prosperity fueled by the intellect of their citizens to improve their home. Without school, we will be unable to improve where we live; it is imperative the situation in Afghanistan improves, and therefore it is imperative that Afghan girls can be educated.