July 2025 | #student
In this interview, we meet Najia Jalal, winner of the E³UDRES² Award of Excellence 2025 for Student Innovation: "Local Pulse, Global Waves". In response to the ban on girls’ education in Afghanistan, Nanja helped create secret schools that offer hope and learning under the most difficult conditions. Her work champions access, resilience, and justice—bringing global awareness to a local struggle and turning it into a movement for change.
Your project addresses a local challenge with global relevance. How did you develop it into a solution with broader impact?
Nearly 2 million girls in Afghanistan have been deprived of education beyond grade 7. One of our greatest needs in Afghanistan right now is access to education as a basic right. The regime that enforces a ban on girls’ education has created a major challenge for all educational programs for women. Despite the restrictions and prohibitions, we continue our efforts and have created opportunities for girls who are denied their right to education. For now, while the school doors remain closed, secret education has become a possible solution.
We did not let opportunities slip away, and we became a source of hope for many girls deprived of learning. Our projects face many challenges, but they are valuable and effective. The struggle for equal rights itself has an impact on women around the world, who see how we have made the impossible possible—by teaching our girls in underground spaces so that they are not left illiterate in the future.
What did you think of the E³UDRES² Awards of Excellence as an opportunity, and how can E³UDRES² better support student-led initiatives like yours?
This opportunity was truly a turning point for us — a ray of light in the midst of darkness. It gave us hope to know that our voices are being heard, our stories are being listened to, and our efforts are being supported. Receiving this award affirmed the profound value of our ongoing struggle for the right to education. Through this program, we were able to bring our initiatives to an international platform and gain meaningful support from individuals and organizations around the world.
We are deeply grateful — especially on behalf of the girls living in the most remote corners of Afghanistan, who continue to face gender-based discrimination but remain determined to pursue a better future.
Interview by St. Pölten UAS
