When Shabana Basij-Rasikh was a child, she dressed up like a boy to walk to school in Taliban-held Afghanistan. Now 24, she is once again defying the odds in her country—this time in her drive to develop an internationally accredited boarding school for girls.

Afghanistan has seen vast improvements in education. There are more than 14,000 educational institutions, and a national curriculum has been established after 30 years of conflict.

But education remains a challenge for girls and women. Only 12 percent of Afghan women are literate, and among school-age children, 38 percent (4.2 million children, the majority of them girls) do not have access to schools. Violence, tradition, and poverty all conspire—in different parts of the country—to make education