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That was Dr. Shefajo in late 2019 speaking with us in her clinic. Her calling card? A passionate, collaborative physician.

She began her career delivering babies in secret on mud floors, when the Taliban was last in power in the mid-1990s. When we first spoke with her in 2019, that all seemed like a fading memory.

When you were working underneath Taliban rule, did you ever imagine that, one day, you would have a clinic like this, equipment like this?

(LAUGHTER)

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Many Afghan women forced to quit careers, country in hopes of better life for their kids

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Since the Taliban took over control of Afghanistan last year, the future of the country's women has been in peril. Many girls are barred from receiving an education, and women are prevented from holding many jobs.

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Afghanistan's women saw two decades of progress vanish when U.S. forces withdrew in August as the Taliban took back control of the country. The group's arch-conservative interpretation of Islam pushed women out of the workplace, and cast most young women and girls out of school. But as Jane Ferguson and videographer Eric O'Connor report, some women in Afghanistan are not taking this lying down.

Judy Woodruff:
In a moment last August, Afghanistan's women saw two decades of progress vanish, as the Taliban took back over the country.

The group's arch-conservative interpretation of Islam pushed women out of the workplace and cast most young women and girls out of school.

But, as Jane Ferguson and videographer Eric O'Connor report, some women in Afghanistan are not taking this lying down and are raising their voices in protest.

Jane Ferguson:
In Kabul, we saw this for ourselves.

After getting word the women were going to launch a rally, we rushed to the area, aware they often only have a few moments before the Taliban show up.

They don't want them talking to us. What we're doing is writing my name and cell phone number on little pieces of paper to give to the women, so that we can slip them in their pockets, hoping that they can contact us.

As soon as we arrived, we were forced back into our car at gunpoint. One young woman who came to speak with us.

Jane Ferguson:
She barely gets a few sentences out before the Taliban gunmen order us to stop filming.

The women, just about 30 feet from our car, filmed this footage on their phones that day. They are surrounded by Taliban gunmen, unable to move.

The rights of women in Afghanistan have been decimated since the Taliban takeover in August 2021. Education for girls over 12 is restricted, and women are increasingly pushed out of public and economic life. Those fighting to hold on to the hard-fought gains they achieved over the last 20 years face international abandonment and a violent patriarchal movement.

The United Nations now calls the Taliban's actions against women and girls collective punishment.

Storai Ahmadi, Women for Women International: They are not allowed to have economic activities, not only having economic activities. They are not allowed to travel by their own.

Jane Ferguson:
Since the fall of Kabul and Taliban takeover, Afghanistan's economy has largely collapsed, and the country has descended into the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Nowhere among its people is it felt more than women and girls. We traveled to the west of the country to Herat. Drought here has caused harvests to fail, making life even harder for women to feed their children.

"We cannot buy anything. We cannot buy even potato," this woman told me at an emergency food distribution set up by the World Food Program. We spoke with women here about their gravest concerns.

Even as she struggles to eat, this widow mourns the loss of her four daughters' education the most.

Storai Ahmadi:
In beginning, it was very much difficult to talk with them, because I was feeling that I am not with them, I am far from them.

But now, when I talk with them, when I work with them, holding meeting with them, I feel like I have - I feel like I have to do a lot of work. I should do something for them. I should be very active. I should help them.

So, it's - yes it's very difficult and good. Like, and here, it's very difficult. Like, you always want to do something for them, help them.

Jane Ferguson:
Leverage over the Taliban remains limited since the U.S.-led withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Yet the women we met remain hopeful keeping the world's eyes and ears on their cause can make a difference, their protests, in whatever form they take, however small, a profound danger, their courage unbreakable.

For the "PBS NewsHour," I'm Jane Ferguson in Kabul, Afghanistan.

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Despite brutal repression, Afghan women demand the right to go to school and work

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Afghanistan's women saw two decades of progress vanish when U.S. forces withdrew in August as the Taliban took back control of the country. The group's arch-conservative interpretation of Islam pushed women out of the workplace, and cast most young women and girls out of school.

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Air strike threats don’t deter these Syrian children from going to school

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Syria is in the throes of conflict. In the northeast, Syrian Kurdish forces are fighting ISIS militants who forced a prison break last week. It’s the largest recent ISIS resurgence. The president and his Russian allies are continuing airstrikes in Northwest Idlib province. But Syrian children are de…

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Where’s The Color In Kids’ Lit? Ask The Girl With 1,000 Books (And Counting)

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Eleven-year-old Marley Dias went on a quest to collect and donate 1,000 books with a black girl as the main character. Spoiler alert: She did really well.

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Girls Can Change the World-But We Have to Invest in Them First

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Activist Malala Yousafzai writes that if we want a brighter future-for them and for ourselves-we must invest in female education today.

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DAVOS: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and global education advocate, Malala Yousafzai has said that her aim was to empower women and for this she was endeavoring for girls' education.

Malala sat next to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a panel discussion encircling empowerment for girls through education, at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The Nobel laureate, Malala Yousafzai in her opening oration identified the various barriers that stand in the way of girls around the world, stopping them from their due education. She recognized those barriers as child marriages, poverty, lack of transport or even an insufficiency of operational schools in the area.

The 20-year-old education activist and honorary Canadian citizen, addressed to Trudeau and plead to make girls' education a focal point of the G7 leader's Summit that is to be held in June in Quebec, Canada.

She demonstrated how with the help of the Malala Foundation she was in contact with advocates of education around the world in countries like Latin America, Nigeria, India and Pakistan.

According to her these supporters have helped build up the foundation through a range of ways including teacher training, e-learning and the enormous effort of empowering women who she believes will rule the future times to come.

Yousafzai also mentioned that a major part in removing the barriers from a women's life to education, lies within the hands of governments of the countries, who must prioritize this key concern and take action.

She expressed her gratitude to the Canadian Prime Minister and stated that she will be looking forward to Trudeau's support for her organization.

During the discussion, Trudeau announced to double the support for the Global Partnership for Education fund with $180 million in the years 2018-2020. He stated that this financial support would act as a means to reinforce education in developing countries and will be a backbone in the cause for girl's education.

Sharing the panel with Pakistan's young activist for female education, Trudeau especially stressed on Canada's role in making sure young women around the world get the education that they rightfully deserve.

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Malala says endeavoring for girls' education, empowerment of women

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DAVOS: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and global education advocate, Malala Yousafzai has said that her aim was to empower women and for this she was endeavoring for girls' education.Malala sat...

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Activist Malala Yousafzai's charity is getting a major investment from Apple.

Apple's support will allow the Malala Fund to double the number of grants to fund the secondary education for girls in India and Latin America, the company announced Sunday. The initial goal is to help more than 100,000 girls.

"We believe that education is a great equalizing force, and we share Malala Fund's commitment to give every girl an opportunity to go to school," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement.

The money will also be used to help the organization scale its "technology, curriculum and research into policy changes."

Apple didn't specify how much it's donating, but Cook will join the fund's leadership council.

"Through both their innovations and philanthropy, Apple has helped educate and empower people around the world," said Yousafzai in a statement. "I am grateful that Apple knows the value of investing in girls and is joining Malala Fund in the fight to ensure all girls can learn and lead without fear."

The Malala Fund, founded in 2013, aims to help girls in struggling countries access "free, safe and quality education," according to its website. Yousafzai gained global attention for becoming the youngest Nobel Peace Price winner in history in 2014. She survived a gunshot to the head from the Taliban in 2012 when she spoke out about attaining quality education in Pakistan.

Yousafzai is scheduled to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Thursday.

CNNMoney (New York) First published January 22, 2018: 7:28 AM ET

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Apple partners with Malala Yousafzai to fund girls' education

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Apple's support will allow the Malala Fund to double the number of grants to fund the secondary education for girls in India and Latin America, the company announced Sunday. The initial goal is to help more than 100,000 girls.

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Our programs provide tailored solutions to students facing multiple barriers to education to acquire relevant skills, creating opportunities for positive transitions to secondary school and dignified livelihoods. Our integrated approach is based on extensive research on what works to increase marginalized girls' learning outcomes, retention, and wellbeing.

We put girls at the center of our programs and build a supportive environment for them in the community and at school. At the individual level, CARE helps girls develop their academic competencies alongside leadership and life skills, raising their confidence and voices. At the community level, we work with parents and traditional and religious leaders to shift negative gender and social norms affecting education outcomes, increasing support for girls' education and active participation in school. We work with Ministries of Education and school staff to improve the quality of teaching, strengthen supervisory capacity, and develop gender-transformative and inclusive policies and budgeting

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Education - Improving Education for Children - CARE

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CARE eradicates education barriers to improve access to quality education. Donate today to help CARE improve education for children and women.

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Latest Working in development news, comment and analysis from the Guardian, the world's leading liberal voice

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Edited by Joanne Conelly, Gaëlle Dessus, Anna Diarra, et al.
Youth Activism Project, School Girls Unite
118 pages. $16 paperback. Free full-color PDF download.

A few years ago, a small group of seventh-grade girls in Maryland were shocked to learn that their peers in developing countries must pay to attend school. Families in poverty can barely afford their sons' education; daughters as young as 9 get married instead of going to school. Founding School Girls Unite, an organization "to let the whole world know," these girls formed a mission: "Tackling prejudice against girls worldwide and expanding their freedom and opportunities through education."

They found partners in the French-speaking West African nation of Mali, where only 15 in 100 females know how to read. A few of the rare girls attending high school and college in Mali formed a sister organization, Les Filles Unies pour l'Education.

The American group raises money to send 75 girls in Mali to school each year, while the group in Mali visits the sponsored girls' villages to see how they are doing. Both groups inspire others to address the worldwide education problem. They also lobby their national leaders to hasten efforts to fulfill the United Nations Millennium Development Declaration, which promises that gender disparity will be eliminated by 2015, with every child around the world receiving primary schooling.

In her foreword, Wendy Schaetzel Lesko, a leader in civic engagement through her Youth Activism Project, discusses how this collaboration began, with brainstorming among girls she brought together with young African women in the Washington, D.C., area. Lesko is a guiding force as coordinator of School Girls Unite.

In this action guide, 13 contributors from Les Filles Unies and 28 from School Girls Unite explain why educating girls is a key to solving such global problems as poverty, HIV/AIDS, hunger, war and sexism. The book features text in English on the left-hand pages and in French on the right. Black-and-white photographs show both groups in action, along with the children in Mali whom they support. Bulleted lists, bold type and inset quotes from youth make the pages easy to digest.

Clear instruction in basic skills of activism include public-speaking tips; a pep talk on being assertive in promoting your cause; communications etiquette, such as asking the school principal for permission to campaign; fundraising ideas, from selling pencils to putting on an elaborate dance soirée in Mali; getting media attention, like the photo-op the American girls scored with Hillary Clinton; and lobbying.

This treasury of encouragement and strategies can serve as a handbook for any youth-led cause. Videos and links on the girls' website offer more tools for helping others join them in making this girls' education movement global. (800) 543-7693, http://www.schoolgirlsunite.org.

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Girls Gone Activist! How to Change the World Through Education

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Edited by Joanne Conelly, Gaëlle Dessus, Anna Diarra, et al. Youth Activism Project, School Girls Unite 118 pages. $16 paperback. Free full-color PDF download. A few years ago, a small group of seventh-grade girls in Maryland were shocked to learn that their peers in developing countries must pay to attend school.

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Global Campaign For Education United States Chapter

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Worldwide, 132 million girls are out of school (2016). Of that 132 million, 34.3 million girls are of primary school age. Girls are more likely to have to stay at home and tend to younger siblings and other household chores, and 1 in 3 girls in the developing world are married before the age of 18. Ultimately, their earnings are often tied to men--from fathers, to brothers, to husbands to sons.

Even though they are marginalized throughout the world, investing in women and girls makes the difference. It is estimated that if every girl worldwide received 12 years of quality education, lifetime earnings for women could increase by US$15 trillion. One additional school year can increase a woman's earnings by 10% to 20% toward her future annual income, and adults girls are more likely to invest a far larger percentage of her income back into her family.

By investing in girls you are investing in their future, their family's future and their country's future.
More resources on girls' education:
12 Years of Quality Education for All Girls: A Commonwealth Perspective (2019), The University of Cambridge

Missed Opportunities : The High Cost of Not Educating Girls Report (2018), The World Bank, Global Partnership for Education
Gender and EFA 2000-2015 Achievements and Challenges EFA Global Monitoring Report
Gender Education Monitoring Report Gender Review 2018, United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI), UNESCO

Evidence Review: Mitigating threats to girls' education in conflict affected contexts - current practice, The United Nations Girls' Education Initiative (UNGEI), Overseas Development Initiative (ODI)

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Girls' Education | Global Campaign For Education United States Chapter

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Girls around the world are often left out of the conversation. In 2000, girls accounted for nearly two thirds of children out of school. Now it stands at half and work is continuing.

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"I am hopeful the European Parliament will look beyond Europe to the suffering countries where people are still deprived of their basic rights, their freedom of thought is suppressed, freedom of speech is enchained," Ms Yousafzai said.

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Malala Yousafzai gets EU's Sakharov human rights prize

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Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban, receives the EU's Sakharov human rights prize in Strasbourg.

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Malala Yousafzai is a Woman of the Year because... "By targeting her, extremists showed what they feared most: a girl with a book. Malala embodies the power of education to build peace. She is truly a role model for the world."
-Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations__
Update: Malala wins the Nobel Peace Prize "

For most of us, her story began on October 9, 2012, the day a young man with a handkerchief over his face boarded a bus filled with 20 singing, chatting girls on their way home from school in the lush Swat Valley of northern Pakistan. "Who is Malala?" the man asked. When the girls unwittingly glanced toward their 15-year-old friend near the back, he lifted a black Colt .45 and fired three shots, sending a bullet through her head.

But who is Malala? Her real story, she told me, started years before.

When Malala Yousafzai-named, fittingly, after Malalai, a female Afghan martyr who died in battle-was born, her father, a teacher named Ziauddin, refused to grieve the way fathers in his culture were expected to upon having daughters; instead, he wrote her into his clan's family tree-a distinction usually reserved for boys. And Malala's sense of justice came young. When, at an early age, she saw children living on a garbage dump, she wrote a letter to God. "Give me strength and courage," she pleaded. "I want to make this world perfect."

Malala's valley had always been conservative; she remembers disliking having to cover her face, and bristling at the fact that while boys and men could walk freely around town, her mother could not go out without a male relative, "even if it was a five-year-old boy!" But real danger only came to her peaceful region when she was 10-in the form of the Taliban. Then, says Malala,"I got afraid. Not of the Taliban, but because they were banning girls' education." Schools closed; many were bombed; bodies of dissenters piled up in a town square. The local Taliban leader used his radio show to congratulate by name those girls who dropped out of school. The school Malala's father ran stayed open, but for safety, it removed its signs and the girls stopped wearing their uniforms, which would have made them targets.

And that's when Malala really became Malala. When a BBC journalist asked her father to recommend a teacher or student willing to document the terror, no one volunteered-except his own daughter. "I thought, What a great opportunity," she recalls. "Terrorism will spill over if you don't speak up." Under the pen name Gul Makai, she wrote frank, detailed diary entries about her life under the Taliban. Though many urged her to stop, and some have since criticized her father for allowing her to do it, Malala wasn't worried. The Taliban, she remembers, "had never come for a girl."

Emboldened, she began giving speeches across Pakistan in favor of education. She won the country's National Peace Prize and met the prime minister, presenting him with a list of demands on behalf of children-rebuilt schools, a girls' college-but keeping her expectations low. "I told myself, 'I shall not wait for any prime minister-when I'm a politician, I will do these things myself,'" she says. Malala led a double life: In one world, she was an Ugly Betty fan known for her spot-on impersonations of teachers and friends; in the other, a rising voice of dissent against terror. She started to realize her work could be risky. "I used to think that one day the Taliban would come [for me]," she told me. "And I thought, What would I do? I said to myself, 'Malala, you must be brave. You must not be afraid of anyone. You are only trying to get an education-you are not committing a crime.' I would even tell [my attacker], 'I want education for your son and daughter.' " Her own mother decided to take classes to learn to read and write.

And then came October 9.

Her parents rushed to her bedside. "My brave daughter, my beautiful daughter," lamented her father, leaning over her. But his brave daughter recovered, thanks in part to two visiting British doctors who were able to take her to a hospital in Birmingham, England. Around the world, women, men, and children prayed for her. Thousands of letters piled up (one addressed simply to "The Girl Shot in the Head, Birmingham"), and people everywhere asked: Would she be okay? Could she lead a normal life again?

It turns out that for Malala, normal was never the goal. In the year since her attack, she has spoken, written, and fought her way into history, becoming the world's leading advocate for educating girls. Not normal-extraordinary.

At the United Nations in July, she brought the general assembly to its feet. "One child, one teacher, one pen, and one book can change the world," she said. Since then she has Skyped with Syrian children, written the memoir I Am Malala, charmed Jon Stewart and Barack Obama, and become one of the youngest-ever nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize. Throughout it all, she has stayed focused: Let girls go to school.

The issue certainly needs a hero right now. Around the world an estimated 66 million girls are being denied the right to an education. Fix that, scholars have long said, and you could change the course of human history. "There's a saying," says Sheryl WuDunn, coauthor of Half the Sky, "that when you educate boys, you educate boys; when you educate girls, you educate a village." Educated girls are safer from sexual assault and childhood marriage; they go on to raise more-educated children themselves. Her Muslim faith, Malala points out, is in her favor: "Islam tells us every girl and boy should be educated," she says. "I don't know why the Taliban have forgotten it."

For that sensibility, and for her unstoppable drive to change the world, Malala is Glamour's 2013 Women of the Year Fund honoree. The money raised goes to the project she is most passionate about, The Malala Fund, which aims to help children all over the world get the education that is their birthright. The fund recently made its first grant, supporting the educations of 40 girls in the Swat Valley-an achievement that thrills Malala, who wants to expand to other regions and countries (she cites Syria, Afghanistan, Nigeria). "Nothing can happen when half the population is in the Stone Age," she says. "I believe that when women are educated, then you will see this world change."

Malala's own world has changed hugely, from a small town to the global stage. She plans to go to college-Oxford, Cambridge, maybe Harvard, "to learn and learn and learn"-and into politics; one of her heroes is the assassinated Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, whose scarf she wore during that address at the United Nations.

But the place she'd most like to go is home. She misses it dearly. "I miss my room, I miss the traffic-I even miss that garbage dump!" she says. But it's far too dangerous for her there. "We will target her again and attack whenever we have a chance," a Taliban spokesperson told reporters in October. So Malala and her family-her mother, father, and younger brothers Khushal and Atal-are changing the world from abroad. "If Malala can do what she did-take on the Taliban, at risk to her own life," notes 1997 Nobel Peace Prize winner (and Woman of the Year) Jody Williams, "then there is really no excuse for the rest of us not to get up off our butts and work to make the world a better place."

The last time I spoke to Malala (by Skype, with her family milling about behind her), I asked her what she wanted Glamour's 12 million readers to know. "You can tell them a story from my imagination!" she said cheerfully. "When God created man and woman, he was thinking, Who shall I give the power to, to give birth to the next human being? And God chose woman. And this is the big evidence that women are powerful. Women are strong. Women can do anything. Come out and struggle for your rights; nothing can happen without your voice.

"Do not wait for me to do something for your rights. It's your world, and you can change it."

__Read more:

* Glamour Women of the Year 2013

* The Malala Fund

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Malala Yousafzai is a Woman of the Year because... "By targeting her, extremists showed what they feared most: a girl with a book. Malala embodies the power of education to build peace. She is truly a role model for the world." -Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the United Nations