KENT—Kent School’s graduation is Sunday, June 2, at 10 a.m. and the graduation speaker is Shabana Basij-Rasikh, co-founder of School of Leadership Afghanistan (SOLA).
Basij-Rasikh has dedicated her life to educating Afghan girls. She grew up in Kabul and was able to attend secret schools for girls that were run by women. After the fall of the Taliban in 2001, Basij-Rasikh attended a year of high school in the U.S. through the State Department’s Youth Exchange Studies program, and later enrolled at Middlebury College in Vermont.
While still a student at Middlebury, she co-founded SOLA, a school designed to provide access to quality education for girls in Afghanistan. She graduated in 2011 magna cum laude with a degree in International Studies and Women & Gender Studies. She also has a master’s in Public Policy from Oxford University.
In August 2021, with the fall of Kabul, she led the evacuation of the SOLA community to Rwanda, where it has established its operation and exists as the only boarding school for Afghan girls in the world.
Kent School’s two senior prefects, Robby and Dymond, will also speak during the graduation ceremony. Robby is a Kent resident, as he’s the son of two faculty members. Last names of the students were not provided by the school’s Marketing and Communication Office.
