On March 23rd, SOLA opens our admissions season for 2024. We’ll enroll a new class of Afghan girls and bring them to SOLA’s campus in Rwanda.

In 2023, we received nearly 2,000 applications: an all-time high. We admitted 31 girls, who are traveling to Rwanda with chaperones from the UN’s International Organization for Migration, or IOM. We’re so proud to continue this partnership with IOM to ensure that every new student will arrive in Rwanda safely.

Our school year begins in September. The girls who come to us will be tomorrow’s leaders, members of a sisterhood that crosses all borders – and as we grow in Rwanda, we aren’t turning away from Afghanistan and the women and girls there. We never will.

March 23 marks two years since the closing of girls' schools in Afghanistan. I want every Afghan girl everywhere to know: I will never look away from you.

SOLA’s mission, in 2024 and in all the years to come, is to educate Afghan girls. Educated girls grow to become educated women who teach more girls — and these girls become women who teach even more girls. This is the virtuous circle we are setting in motion.

It all begins at SOLA, with the girls who will change the world.

-Shabana