2026 WINNER

Shabana Basij-Rasikh

SOLA (School of Leadership, Afghanistan) 

SOLA educates Afghan girls to become critical thinkers, ethical leaders, and compassionate citizens who will rebuild Afghanistan’s future.

Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the co-founder and president of SOLA: the School of Leadership, Afghanistan. SOLA educates Afghan girls to be the future women leaders of Afghanistan, and is the only organization of its kind anywhere on Earth.

SOLA opened as the first and only girls’ boarding school in Afghanistan in 2016 with an inaugural class of 24 girls. It grew to enroll nearly 100 girls by 2021, when the Taliban’s seizure of power prompted Shabana to lead the evacuation of 250+ SOLA community members, including the school’s entire student body, to the nation of Rwanda where classes soon resumed.

Under Shabana’s leadership in 2026, a decade after 24 Afghan girls made history, SOLA educates tens of thousands of Afghan students: at its Rwanda boarding school; through international educational partnerships; and through SOLAx, a unique digital learning platform that reaches 28,000+ learners worldwide. Shabana’s goal is the creation of a worldwide movement of educated Afghan women, a network of sisterhood with the tools and capacities to become bold leaders on a global scale.

Shabana is a 2011 graduate of Middlebury College with a Master in Public Policy from Oxford University. In 2018, she received the Malalai Medal, one of Afghanistan’s highest national honors. In 2023, she received the Rolex National Geographic Explorer of the Year award from the National Geographic Society.