Editor's note: Shabana Basij-Rasikh is one of National Geographic's 2014 emerging explorers, a designation that honors tomorrow's visionaries—those making discoveries, making a difference, and inspiring people to care about the planet.
Shabana Basij-Rasikh thinks she knows the secret to healing ethnic tensions that arose from more than 30 years of war in Afghanistan, improving the struggling economy, and fixing the devastated infrastructure: girls.
Having co-founded her home country's first boarding school for girls in 2008, Basij-Rasikh believes that women are the nation's most valuable untapped natural resource. Her nonprofit School of Leadership, Afghanistan in Kabul offers college prep courses and helps graduates get into universities around the world.
The hope is that they come back to pursue careers in Afghanistan.
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