2,500 Afghan Women Defying the Taliban by Studying "Underground" with American Online University

Two years after Taliban’s return, Afghanistan women have lost most of their freedoms – including their right to be educated – but not their desire to learn.

PASADENA, CA, UNITED STATES, August 15, 2023/EINPresswire.com/ -- Two years after the Taliban’s return, the women of Afghanistan have lost most of their freedoms – including their right to be educated – but not their desire to learn.

More than 2,500 Afghan women are defying the Taliban by continuing their education “underground” studying from the safety of their homes with University of the People (UoPeople), an American online university. UoPeople’s mission is to provide educational opportunities to people around the world who have no other means to earn a college degree.

“Girls like me have bitter fate under Taliban dictatorship,” said Pakiza, a UoPeople Afghan student (only her first name is used to protect her identity). “I want the right to be educated like any other woman in the world. I want to break the doors that keep me isolated.”

Since Aug. 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power, over 21,000 Afghan women desperate to continue their education have applied to UoPeople. To date, the university has provided more than 2,500 scholarships to Afghan women and is actively raising funds for additional scholarships.

"I am a woman from a third world country called Afghanistan, known as Hell for Girls,” said Zinat, a UoPeople student from Afghanistan. “Women in my nation are imprisoned in their houses and left to feel like moving corpses, deprived of their most basic human rights including education.”

UoPeople is the world’s first non-profit, tuition-free, American-accredited online university. UoPeople enrolls more than 126,000 students from over 200 countries, including 16,500 refugees -- more than any other university in the world.

“Studying online is really the only option left for these brave Afghan women to continue their educational journeys,” said UoPeople President Shai Reshef. "This is a serious human rights issue, and I am urging every university around the globe to open their online classes for free to Afghan women."

UoPeople’s easily accessible and flexible online degree programs ensure that students can study at any time, from anywhere, and at any pace. Students only need to have a basic internet connection to access the university’s courses, which means Afghan students can easily study “underground” from the safety of their homes.

Designed to open access to higher education globally, UoPeople helps qualified high school graduates overcome financial, geographic, political, and personal constraints keeping them from collegiate studies. The university offers certificate, associate and bachelor’s degree programs in business administration, computer science, and health science, as well as MBA, MSIT, and M.Ed. programs. Graduates of UoPeople can be found working at such companies as Deloitte, Amazon, Apple, Pfizer, Google, Microsoft and IBM. In addition, UoPeople collaborates with Harvard Business School Online, NYU Abu Dhabi, McGill University, and the University of Edinburgh and has been supported by foundations such as the Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation and Hewlett Foundation

“Many thanks to University of People for giving me a chance to study. UoPeople helped me to dream again about a better future and gave me the confidence to chase my dreams,” said Maliha, a UoPeople Afghan student from Kabul.

Dan Kalmanson
University of the People
+1 973-609-2614
daniel.kalmanson@uopeople.edu
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