Our Founder’s Story
Breaking the Barriers:
I was born in 1987, two years before Afghanistan got engulfed in a fierce war between the Soviet-backed government and the Mujahideen, which eventually led to the Taliban’s rise in 1994. Growing up amid a violent conflict meant missed schooling and widespread illiteracy for millions, including myself. By the time the Taliban seized power in 1996, I was just eight years old, in the second grade, and had already known more chaos than many experience in a lifetime. Little did I know the most significant challenges were yet to come. The most heartbreaking moment came when my two sisters were denied their right to education under the Taliban’s rule. This injustice struck me deeply—how could something as fundamental as learning be taken away from my sisters while I was allowed to continue?
In 2004
After graduating from high school in 2004, I began my teaching journey. By 2007, when I entered Kabul Education University to pursue my Bachelor of Arts in English Language and Literature, I had founded the Payam Kateb Educational Center (later Kateb English House), an Accelerated Learning Center in Kabul for girls who, like my sisters, had been denied education under the Taliban. Despite their disadvantaged circumstances, these young women carried immense hope and determination that inspired me deeply.
My role as an educator became a mission to ensure access to education for all, regardless of their social markers. Over the past 15+ years, from founding Kateb to volunteering my time with the Afghan Girls Financial Assistance Fund, where I led their Afghanistan operations and established six libraries, primarily providing services to girls and women, and to working with USAID and UNESCO, I have fiercely and fearlessly pursued this mission and simultaneously continued to educate myself to delve into the nuances of the field up until where I stand now as a Ph.D. candidate in Education Policy at Arizona State University.
Today
My commitment to expanding educational opportunities for the girls and women in Afghanistan remains more resilient than ever for me today. When the Taliban reinstated the ban on women’s education, I knew I had to take action. So, I continued to volunteer my time by primarily advising on college and graduate school applications, but that was too little and too ad-hoc, so I established the Alekain Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, to expand my mission.
Alekain in Farsi refers to the oil-based lamp people use to light their homes and other spaces. We propose it as the name for the 501 C-3 nonprofit as a metaphor to not only point to our mission of fighting the stark darkness that the Taliban has created for the women and girls in Afghanistan but also to refer to education as an enlightening tool that helps one navigate their pathways to individual and collective prosperity and productivity.