Afghan teen speaks about education and learning rights at Montreal symposium

Nila Ibrahimi made use of to adore singing.

She grew up in Afghanistan and was section of a musical group. But that would seem like a distant memory now.

“We sang songs about women’s legal rights, human rights and our own legal rights as children,” the teenager advised CTV Information on Saturday.

Ibrahimi was 14 several years previous when the Taliban returned to electric power. A top rated university student at her college in Kabul, it occurred when she was finding out for examinations.

1 working day, she was worried about her grades. The up coming: her lifetime.

“I felt like I was not me any longer. I didn’t have the chance to be the childish version of me that I was authorized to just before,” mentioned Ibrahimi, at this time a grade 11 student. “Every thing was taken away from me, I had to develop into an grownup that working day. I could not get started crying my household experienced other points to fear about.”

Ibrahimi spoke to CTV Information at McGill College, where she was invited to speak at the annual Canadian Gals for Girls in Afghanistan (CW4WAfghan).

The corporation supports Afghan girls and women with schooling methods.

Less than the Taliban, secondary education and learning and earlier mentioned is banned for ladies. In some provinces, not even elementary school is permitted.

Ibrahimi and her household now stay in Canada, but she carries on to advocate for her close friends back household.

“Their life are becoming squandered,” she reported. “And I feel actually responsible for dwelling listed here with the chances they should have as perfectly. That is what makes me heartbroken.”

But there are Canadian corporations supporting.

For case in point, CW4WAfghan organizes on-line for females and girls in Afghanistan, supporting them find out and join with just one one more.

“Becoming prisoners at house, remaining denied schooling prospects, carry this education and learning in a protected mode in their houses and connecting them with their classmates — it will not only give them with an instruction possibility, but also a feeling of modern society,” stated Murwarid Ziayee, senior director of CW4WAfghan.

Two many years right after the Taliban takeover, Ibrahimi states the most important lesson she’s discovered — and the just one she hopes the ladies of Afghanistan recall — is that you will find constantly hope.

“Extra individuals are offering up on the girls living there, and I am not one of those people,” she reported. “My age will not subject, I know the toughness my voice holds and I am willing to do this each working day of my daily life.”

“The only resolution is hope.”
