Voices Unveiled: How an Online Course is Transforming Afghan Women’s Lives

In the shadows of oppression, a radical light of hope shines through screens across Afghanistan. The Voices Unveiled Self-Empowerment program is giving Afghan women what the Taliban has tried to take away: education, community, and the power to dream.

1.4 million—that’s the verified number of Afghan girls who have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since the Taliban takeover in 2021, according to the latest UNESCO data. That means 1.4 million futures dimmed, dreams deferred, and voices silenced. These are women who refused to become statistics—women who, with direct support, found ways to continue their education despite overwhelming odds. This isn’t just about education; it’s about whether we allow an entire generation of women to disappear from classrooms, professions, and public life.

 

“I Didn’t Know I Was Allowed to Dream”

In August 2021, when the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, the world watched as decades of progress for women’s rights unraveled overnight. Schools closed their doors to girls. Universities emptied of female students. Professional women were ordered home.

But in the digital realm, a revolution was quietly taking shape.

The Voices Unveiled Self-Empowerment program, a comprehensive 12-week online course, has become a lifeline for Afghan women and girls living under Taliban rule. Meeting three times weekly in a secure virtual space, participants explore everything from mental wellness and critical thinking to trauma healing and feminist principles—creating what one student calls “a mirror that showed me who I really am, not what society told me I was.”

 

U.S. Aid Cuts: The Digital Lifeline Under Threat

The Taliban’s rule in Afghanistan has created an “unparalleled” system of gender-based discrimination according to UN human rights experts Richard Bennett and Dorothy Estrada-Tanck following their eight-day visit to the country. Since the Taliban’s takeover, devastating consequences have followed: child marriage rates have soared, with up to 57% of Afghan girls married before age 19, with 15 and 16 being the most common ages for these unions. A staggering 94.3% of women who were child brides report being unemployed with limited future opportunities.

The mental health crisis is catastrophic, with women accounting for approximately 80% of the 3,000 recorded suicide attempts in recent years. Self-immolation is particularly common among females aged 14–19. Unlike global patterns where men die by suicide at nearly twice the rate of women, Afghanistan has seen this pattern dramatically reversed, with women and girls accounting for the majority of both suicide attempts and deaths in 9 out of 11 provinces where data was available. Nearly half of Afghanistan’s 40 million people suffer from psychological distress, with UN Women describing the situation as “a mental health crisis precipitated by a women’s rights crisis.”

Educated women, including those with bachelor’s and master’s degrees, are being forced into marriages and domestic servitude, representing what Voices Unveiled founder Cara Cruickshank calls “the intellectual annihilation of an entire generation of female scholars.” Former professors, doctors, and engineers have become domestic servants to their husbands’ families, forced to abandon their academic and career aspirations completely.

This crisis has worsened in 2025 with the Trump administration’s escalation from a “temporary” 90-day suspension to outright cancellation of approximately $562 million in aid for Afghanistan—including $280 million from the World Food Programme and $257 million from other NGOs. The cuts have forced the closure of hundreds of secret girls’ schools previously funded by USAID, suspended all classes at the American University of Afghanistan for 700 female students, and shuttered community-based education programs serving nearly 300,000 children in remote areas.

International scholarship programs that offered escape routes for high-achieving Afghan women have been severely impacted. The Asian University for Women in Bangladesh has halted plans to bring 330 more Afghan students and is struggling to support those already enrolled through emergency fundraising. Texas A&M University’s Women’s Scholarship Endowment program, funded through a $50 million USAID grant, faces an uncertain future beyond June 2025.

The psychological impact has been profound, with one 19-year-old student expressing a sense of double abandonment: “It’s history, happening again. After the Taliban closed our schools, now President Trump did the same thing.” Digital education alternatives are becoming increasingly inaccessible as economic pressures force families to prioritize basic necessities over internet access in a country where over 22 million people require humanitarian assistance.

 

How Voices Unveiled Emerged

What makes Voices Unveiled unique is that it wasn’t created for Afghan women—it was created with them.

The program began with a simple act: asking Afghan women directly what they needed most. When founder Cara Cruickshank, an advocate, educator, and artistic producer whose work spans the U.S., France, and Brazil, reached out in the aftermath of the Taliban takeover, it was Aqela Nussrat, an Afghan refugee and Bard College graduate who now serves as Project Manager at Friends of the American University of Afghanistan, who first shared her story of fleeing the crisis in 2022. When Cruickshank asked what support would be most valuable for women in Afghanistan, Nussrat’s answer was direct: “teach something online.” Nussrat explained that girls in Afghanistan had gone from active lives to total isolation under Taliban rule. “They need to know that someone knows they exist.”

Building on this foundation, Afghan rap artist, fellow human rights activist, and friend Sonita Alizada specifically requested that Cruickshank focus on “Self-Empowerment and Feminism.” A global advocate for women’s rights, Alizada was recently named the 2025 Cannes Lionheart Award recipient, is a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, and has been honored with the U.S. Secretary of State’s International Women of Courage Award. She has also been recognized by TIME Magazine as a Next Generation Leader, by the BBC’s 100 Women, and Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia. Her highly anticipated memoir, simply titled Sonita, chronicling her journey from narrowly escaping child marriage to human rights activist, is set to be published by HarperCollins in June 2025. Alizada understood that what Afghan women needed most were tools for inner strength and knowledge of their rights.

The insight from both women became the cornerstone of the program’s philosophy. Cruickshank, who had been moved by the remarkable resilience of the various Afghan women she had gotten to know through her previous work, understood that what these women lacked wasn’t courage or capability, but access to connection and resources. Rather than imposing solutions from outside, she mobilized her international network of educators, health professionals, and human rights advocates to create educational pathways guided by Afghan women themselves.

The name “Voices Unveiled” wasn’t chosen by Cruickshank—it came from the students, women who understood that in reclaiming their voices, they were refusing to be silenced, hidden, or erased. This name embodies both their resistance and their vision for the future.

Through partnerships with Afghan-run organizations like the Afghan Youth Leadership Academy and Generations of Change, what began as an emergency response transformed into the structured, sustainable support system that exists today—one where Afghan women lead the work themselves, with Cruickshank serving not as a savior but as a bridge-builder, creating conditions where women’s voices can flourish even under the most restrictive circumstances.

The program now relies on a dedicated network of over 30 volunteers from around the globe who contribute their expertise and time to support this mission.

While the Self-Empowerment course remains the cornerstone of Voices Unveiled’s offerings, the program has expanded to meet diverse educational needs. Students can now access elective courses in English, computer science, physics, and philosophy—subjects that broaden horizons and open doors to future opportunities. Perhaps most valuable is the intensive personal support provided: dozens of hours of one-on-one coaching and mentoring each month ensure that participants receive individualized guidance through their educational journeys, helping them navigate both academic challenges and personal circumstances under Taliban rule.

This approach of deep listening and Afghan leadership has earned trust in communities that have witnessed too many well-intentioned but ultimately ineffective interventions. The curriculum evolves based on student feedback, ensuring it meets their actual needs rather than outsiders’ assumptions about what those needs might be.

 

Four Young Women’s Transformative Journeys

 

Mina: “Education Was No Longer My Right, But a Dream”

At just 14 years old, Mina’s passion for learning was abruptly halted when the Taliban took power. “I can still clearly remember the night before my dreams began to fade,” she recalls. “I was pulling another all-nighter for one of my final exams, not aware that it might be my last night studying.”

The months that followed were marked by a suffocating darkness as her world contracted to the walls of her home. With schools closed to girls, the silence of educational and social deprivation was deafening. After a year of this isolation, Mina discovered the Self-Empowerment course through a private online network of peers. Despite being younger than the typical participant, her determination impressed Cruickshank, who recognized in Mina’s application the fierce hunger for knowledge that transcends age.

“Voices Unveiled gave me the encouragement and confidence I had never received before,” Mina shares. “With each class, I felt a change within me—now my voice mattered, my dreams were valid.”

The impact extended far beyond the classroom. When Mina expressed her dream of becoming an astronaut, Cruickshank not only arranged a meeting with an astrophysicist but asked her friend and PhD Yuval Laor in Colorado to create a special virtual physics class for her. The confidence and encouragement Mina received through Voices Unveiled inspired her to pursue this passion further. The program fueled her determination, ultimately empowering her to seek out and secure educational opportunities that had seemed impossible before.

The inner strength and resilience Mina developed through the Self-Empowerment program gave her the perseverance to overcome tremendous odds. After three years of exclusion from formal education, Mina found her way back to school, powered by the belief in herself that Voices Unveiled had helped her cultivate.

“Everything I have now is thanks to the support Voices Unveiled has given me,” Mina says. “Every day, every second of my life, I carry the encouragement and positive energy that was given to me. Now, it is my time to pass it on to others.” This powerful testament reflects how the program didn’t just provide knowledge—it instilled the confidence and courage needed for Mina to advocate for her own future and dreams.

 

Ava: “A Lost Puzzle Piece Finding Where I Belong”

For Ava, a high school graduate with dreams of becoming a diplomat, the environment around her had eroded her self-confidence. “The constant pressure and unrealistic expectations made me start doubting myself, my abilities, my potential, and even my worth,” she explains. “I began to measure my value based on what society expected from me, which deeply affected my mental health and led to depression.”

Each day under Taliban rule reinforced the message that her aspirations were forbidden, her intellect unwanted, her voice unnecessary. Like many young Afghan women, Ava found herself disappearing into the background of her own life, a shadow-self diminished by oppression.

The Self-Empowerment course became a sanctuary where Ava could rebuild her sense of worth. Unlike empty platitudes like “don’t stress” or “stay calm,” the program offered concrete coping strategies for moments of chaos. Meeting successful female guest speakers provided powerful role models. “In a land where women are limited to domestic labor, seeing and talking to women who have achieved so much made me believe that I can be like them too,” Ava reflects.

“It felt like I was a lost puzzle piece, and this course helped me find where I belong.” This class became a place where her thoughts weren’t just permitted but valued, where she developed “a more positive relationship with my body” and discovered that self-empowerment was “the first step toward creating real change in my life and in the lives of other women around me.”

Perhaps most importantly, the course created a community where Ava felt truly seen. “This course gave me something I didn’t even know I was missing: a space to grow, to reflect, and to rebuild myself,” she says. “As an Afghan girl who has faced many struggles, being part of this journey reminded me that I am not alone and that my voice matters.”

 

Leila: “A Revolution Within Me”

“My voice was buried long before I even knew I had one until Voices Unveiled gave it back to me,” begins Leila’s powerful testimonial. “In a world where fear had silenced my dreams and darkness had stolen my sense of self, I never imagined that a simple course could spark the beginning of a revolution within me.”

For Leila, Voices Unveiled wasn’t just a program—it was “a lifeline” that pulled her from numbness and “awakened a fire in my soul.” The meditation sessions led by Cara Cruickshank became a transformative space where Leila began to feel alive again. “Although my soul and dreams had been crushed by the sudden changes in my country, it was through these meditations and Voices Unveiled’s support that I slowly pulled myself out of the darkness,” she explains.

The sessions created a sanctuary where each participant could speak from her heart. “We discussed fundamental questions: Why should women stand up for their rights? Why must we empower ourselves mentally, physically, and emotionally to build a stronger future?” Through these discussions, they shared stories of pain and resilience—”different scenes of the same struggle every Afghan girl endures.”

One project that particularly inspired Leila involved researching girls’ struggles in other countries. “I realized that hardships are a part of every girl’s life, no matter where she lives. But I also learned something more powerful: when we decide to rise and reclaim our strength, no social, economic, or political barrier can truly stop us from reaching our dreams.”

As the course progressed, Leila found herself part of “a powerful community—one built on shared pain, resilience, and a strong, united mindset.” Sessions on sexual and reproductive health provided critical knowledge, while guest speakers like Indigenous scholar, musician, and community organizer Lyla June Johnston offered inspiration through their own journeys of hardship and triumph.

Leila carries forward a profound message from the course: “We are not only responsible for our own future, but for the lives of the generations to come. If we, as girls and women, remain silent today, then our daughters may inherit the same oppression. But if we rise for ourselves and for them—we can help shape a world led by powerful, wise women who defend and uplift one another.”

 

Jasmine: “We Were Never the Problem, We Were Always the Answer”

“I didn’t know I was allowed to dream,” begins Jasmine’s powerful testimony. “In my world, Afghan girls are raised to survive, not to lead, not to speak, and definitely not to dream.”

Through meditation and visualization practices, Jasmine discovered an internal sanctuary—”a place inside me that the world couldn’t touch.” The curriculum’s exploration of feminism and women’s rights expanded her self-perception. “We studied stories of courageous women who refused to be silent,” she explains. “I no longer saw myself as just a girl, I saw myself as a force.”

The comprehensive nature of the program addressed everything from creative expression to women’s health, boundaries, and relationship skills. “For the first time, I understood my body; not with shame, but with knowledge,” Jasmine explains. “It was like being handed a key to a door that had been locked my whole life.”

Perhaps most valuable was the solidarity formed among participants. “Every week, I saw Afghan girls like me rise a little higher. Laugh louder. Speak stronger. We weren’t just learning, we were transforming.”

Jasmine’s concluding words capture the urgency of expanding this work: “Empowerment isn’t a luxury. For Afghan girls, it’s a lifeline… because we were never the problem. We were always the answer.”

 

A Curriculum of Liberation

What makes the Voices Unveiled program so transformative? The carefully designed 12-week curriculum addresses the multifaceted challenges Afghan women face under Taliban rule.

Beginning with mental health fundamentals like self-compassion, mindfulness, and stress management, the course builds a foundation of psychological resilience. Critical thinking modules equip students to analyze information, develop logical reasoning, and apply these skills specifically to women’s rights issues.

The program doesn’t neglect physical wellbeing, incorporating sessions on women’s health, nutrition, and body positivity—topics often considered taboo in traditional Afghan contexts. Understanding trauma—individual, collective, and intergenerational—provides essential context for healing.

Each semester includes at least half a dozen featured guests from around the world who join the virtual classroom to teach and inspire the 50-60 students, while strict safety protocols ensure participants’ security in a country where women’s education has been criminalized.

These include luminaries like women’s rights activist, author, and media host Zainab Salbi, who after joining the class said: “I am so touched by the work Voices Unveiled does. Everyone should do anything they can to support them.”

In the course’s final weeks, participants explore human rights frameworks and feminist principles, studying trailblazing women throughout history while developing their own paths to liberation. The course culminates in each student creating a personal manifesto for change.

 

A Warning We Cannot Ignore

The story of Afghanistan’s women is not merely a distant tragedy—it’s an urgent warning to Western democracies. In just three years since the Taliban’s return to power, half of Afghanistan’s population has been methodically erased from public life: banned from education beyond sixth grade, prohibited from most employment, barred from parks and gyms, required to cover their faces, and forbidden from traveling without male guardians.

This systematic dismantling of women’s rights, accomplished with shocking speed, stands as a stark reminder of how quickly fundamental freedoms can unravel when authoritarian forces gain power. As debates about educational content, reproductive rights, and gender equality intensify across Western nations, Afghanistan offers a sobering glimpse of the potential endpoint of such regressions—a society where women’s voices, minds, and bodies are no longer their own.

“What’s happening in Afghanistan isn’t some isolated cultural aberration—it’s the logical conclusion of ideologies that place women’s autonomy second to religious doctrine or political control,” explains Cruickshank. “The erasure of women’s rights doesn’t happen overnight. It begins with small restrictions that grow increasingly bold when left unchallenged.”

This crisis represents a dangerous global normalization of women’s erasure. When Taliban leaders can be courted for diplomatic meetings while enacting the most comprehensive violations of women’s rights on the planet, it signals how little women’s rights matter anywhere. As UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted, what we’re witnessing is “gender apartheid in Afghanistan.” This normalization process doesn’t stay contained within borders—it emboldens regressive forces worldwide. In the words of Alison Davidian, UN Women’s Special Representative in Afghanistan, “The world is watching what happens to Afghan women and girls. In some cases, it watches to condemn, but in others, it watches to emulate.”

As women’s rights advocate Zubaida Akbar pointedly reminded the UN Security Council on International Women’s Day: “If you do not defend women’s rights here, you have no credibility to do so anywhere else.” Her message underscores how Afghanistan has become the test case for the global community’s commitment to gender equality everywhere.

As democratic institutions face growing pressures worldwide, the fate of Afghan women serves as both cautionary tale and call to vigilance. Their struggle reminds us that rights once taken for granted can disappear with stunning rapidity, and that the distance between freedom and subjugation may be shorter than we imagine.

By supporting initiatives like Voices Unveiled, we do more than assist women half a world away—we strengthen the global fabric of resistance against forces that would silence half of humanity. As gender equality faces mounting challenges in both Afghanistan and Western democracies, the time for passive concern has passed. The moment calls for active bridges of support that flow in both directions.

 

Be the Bridge: Five Ways to Support Afghan Women’s Digital Revolution

The impact of Voices Unveiled extends far beyond individual participants, creating ripples of change throughout communities. As these four women’s stories demonstrate, the program transforms not just education but entire lives and futures. As Jasmine notes, “There are thousands of girls like me, still waiting for a chance to see themselves.”

Here’s how you can join this digital resistance movement and help Afghan women reclaim their right to learn:

1. Power a Digital Scholar ($500) — Your contribution covers one woman’s complete journey through the life-changing 12-week curriculum with wifi and one-on-one counseling. With just $40 per week, you transform isolation into connection, silence into voice, and limitation into possibility. Smaller donations create scholarship pools that bring more women into this vibrant learning community.
2. Tech the Untechable ($30-$200) — Many brilliant Afghan women can’t access education simply because they lack the tools. Your donation of funds for secure internet connectivity or gently used phones help to overcome the most basic barrier to learning. One device = countless possibilities.
3. Share Your Expertise (Priceless) — Are you knowledgeable about mental health, women’s rights, the arts, education, or technology? Your lived experience and professional insights could inspire a generation of Afghan women fighting for their futures. Join as a guest speaker or ongoing mentor—even a single virtual session can spark transformation.
4. Amplify Their Voices (Free) — In your social circles, workplace gatherings, community events, and online platforms, tell others about Voices Unveiled. Host a fundraiser, create a social media campaign, or organize a discussion group about digital education under oppression. Every conversation breaks the silence that oppressors depend on.
5. Connect Your School Community (Your Network) — Contact your alma mater or local high school to create partnership opportunities. Suggest virtual resource exchanges, scholarship opportunities, joint fundraising initiatives, or awareness campaigns. Educational institutions have powerful platforms for raising both awareness and resources—help them become allies in this crucial work.

“This course is a light in the darkness,” Jasmine writes. “It’s a chance to rebuild what war and silence try to erase.” By taking even one of these actions, you become part of that light—illuminating paths to education that the Taliban cannot extinguish.

Each day that passes sees more women like Mina, Ava, Leila, and Jasmine waiting for their chance to learn, grow, and reclaim their rightful place in society. Their courage in the face of oppression calls for our action.

For more information about supporting the Voices Unveiled Self-Empowerment program, visit voicesunveiled.org or contact hello@voicesunveiled.org.

Note: Names of students have been changed to protect their identities.