When Pashtana Durrani stepped onto the Global Citizen Prize stage in New York City in 2023, she accepted the Citizen Award on behalf of far more than just herself. She dedicated the award to “All the Afghan girls, the activists, and the teachers, who are working tirelessly to make a difference in Afghanistan.”

At the time, Durrani was trying to keep LEARN Afghanistan, the organization she founded, operating from exile. She had left the country after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021 made her work too dangerous to continue openly. With newly instated restrictions on civic life, Afghan girls were once again barred from pursuing an education beyond the sixth grade, and the digital school network she founded was pushed underground. In the years since, Durrani has steadily built her platform. And after winning the Global Citizen Prize, she used the $10,000 grant and the networking resources that came with it to expand LEARN Afghanistan’s reach, opening new pathways to education for girls across the country.

The stakes were, and remain, too high. The plight facing Afghan girls has not eased in the years since. But the scale of Durrani’s work has changed dramatically.

From Six Schools to 25

Durrani’s path fighting for girls’ education began years ago at home. Born in 1997 in a refugee camp near Quetta, Pakistan, she grew up in a family that regarded education as non-negotiable. Her father established a girls’ school in the camp, where her mother and aunt taught.

After her family returned to Afghanistan, Durrani saw her cousin struggle simply to enter a classroom because of her gender. That experience helped drive her to found LEARN in 2018 as the country’s first digital school network. By the time the Taliban seized power in 2021, LEARN had established six digital schools across southern Afghanistan with a handful of trained teachers. Rather than shut down under the new restrictions, the network quietly resumed its programs underground within a month.

The $10,000 grant and networking support that came with the Global Citizen Prize helped Durrani build on that foundation — while the recognition brought new attention to her work at a moment when international focus on Afghanistan was fading.

“Since we have received the Global Citizen Award, we have scaled up from almost six schools to now almost 25 schools, and the scale of almost 600 students now has scaled up to 4,000 students. We are in almost 85% of Afghanistan. But most importantly, we are now near accreditation, and all of that is possible from the exposure.”

Today, those 25 schools LEARN Afghanistan operates exist in Kandahar, Helmand, Daikundi, Samangan, Herat, and Bamyan. The organization has also trained more than 700 girls in menstrual hygiene management and is moving closer to formal accreditation, with a focus on ensuring that all Afghan girls are “educated, empowered, and prepared to lead, regardless of the barriers placed in front of them.”

Taking LEARN to the Next Level

The prize did more than help LEARN grow. It amplified Durrani’s voice at a time when Afghan women’s voices were being systematically silenced, and the world’s attention was drifting away. 

Since receiving the award, Durrani has continued bringing the realities facing Afghan girls to audiences around the world. She has been honored with the CEU Open Society Prize and the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award and, in January 2025, was named to the International Literacy Association’s 30 Under 30 list for her contributions to literacy in underserved communities. Her memoir, “Last to Eat, Last to Learn,” has also carried the story of Afghan girls’ resistance to a global audience.

Through appearances as a commentator on outlets including the BBC, CNN, and PBS, as well as at universities and policy forums, Durrani has kept returning to the same urgent message: Afghanistan may have slipped from the headlines, but millions of girls are still being denied their fundamental right to learn.

For Durrani, education is not only about lessons or qualifications. It is a route to power, independence, and a future in which Afghan girls can make decisions for themselves.

“I’m hoping [LEARN’s students] become the leaders of Afghanistan. I think they will lead their own communities and spaces, but most importantly, become financially independent and decision makers in their own families. That’s the independence and agency I’m looking for.”

The Next Goal: Every Province

Durrani sees LEARN Afghanistan as a beginning, not an endpoint of her mission. Her vision is to establish 34 schools across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan — and eventually carry the model into other conflict-affected places where children are locked out of classrooms.

Reaching that scale, she says, will require the international community to move beyond short-term projects and invest in education for the long haul. “The most important part is investment in credible investment funds and resources for the girls of Afghanistan. It cannot be a [short-term] project,” she explained. “It has to be a sustainable, 14 to 18 year-long investment in schools, in teachers, in their retirements, in students’ retention, in quality of education for us to have any results. And that will move the needle from hundreds to thousands to hundreds of thousands.”

That is the kind of ambition the Global Citizen Prize is designed to fuel: backing leaders who are already creating change, then giving them more resources, visibility, and connections to take their work further. Durrani’s journey since 2023 shows what that support can make possible with more schools, more students, and a stronger global platform for Afghan girls who are being denied one at home. But it also shows why recognition cannot be the final step. The girls studying in LEARN’s classrooms are doing so in secret and at real risk. Their shared determination deserves sustained action and support from the rest of the world.

What can people do to help? “I think the most important [thing] would be rallying around the reality of Afghan women and asking your leaders to pressure the Taliban [to lift]  the ban on girls’ education. The second most important thing would be sharing people’s work in this space. It’s really hard. People don’t care. They don’t listen, and they have forgotten about this cause. Where you can find support, please share, donate, or volunteer your time.”

Pashtana Durrani has refused to accept that Afghan girls’ education is over. Now it’s up to others to do the same — and help her turn thousands of students into hundreds of thousands.