The Cosmos Podcast

The women who won't give up on educating Afghanistan

September 23, 2021 The Royal Institution of Australia
The Cosmos Podcast
The women who won't give up on educating Afghanistan
Show Notes

Today we have an incredibly special podcast for you. We speak to two amazing women about the effect Taliban rule will have on education, especially for women and girls, in Afghanistan. 

Farkhondeh Akbari, originally from Daikundi province in central Afghanistan.  Akbari was born in 1991 in Afghanistan and migrated with her family to Australia when she was 12 years old. She has visited friends and relatives in Afghanistan throughout her life, most recently in 2019. She joins us today from Canberra, where she’s completing a PhD in diplomacy and peace settlements at the ANU. 

Pashtana Durrani is a teacher, and founder and executive director of LEARN, an Afghani not-for-profit whose main focus is providing quality education to all children, especially girls, in Afghanistan. Pashtana has remained in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s return to power.

Ian Connellan, The Royal Institution of Australia’s Editor-in-Chief, conducts the interviews, and Cosmos journalist Lauren Fuge narrates this amazing story.

If you’d like to know more about the challenges to education in Afghanistan please follow LEARN on social media:
Twitter: twitter.com/LEARNAfg
Facebook: facebook.com/LEARNAfg
Instagram: Instagram.com/learn.afg

Connect with Farkhondeh Akbari on Twitter
Go to Organisation for Developing Solutions (ADS) to learn about the education-focussed peacebuilding and development NGO that Farkhondeh co-founded.

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