BOULDER, Colorado — A woman from Boulder is behind a nonprofit launched in the past year and a half, designed to offer education opportunities when most all are banned to girls and women in Afghanistan.
Voices Unveiled has worked to provide women with courses focused on self-empowerment while also teaching them hard skills like computer programming, data analysis and English. They also work to provide mental health resources and emergency funds.
"At the end of 2022, I asked Afghan refugee women who I knew in New York, I asked, 'What is the most important thing you would ask of American citizens right now to support women in Afghanistan?' The answer was teach something online, because the women there feel so forgotten and isolated, and suicide and depression are very prevalent and they feel irrelevant to the world because the world is ignoring the crisis ever since the U.S. pulled its troops out," Executive Director Cara Cruickshank said.
Out of that answer was born Voices Unveiled, which Cruickshank said has helped more than 150 Afghan women in its first 18 months.
What's happening in Afghanistan
Earlier this month, the Taliban banned women's voices in all public places. They can't speak nor sing, penalized by arrest. Women are not permitted to leave their home without a family chaperon.
"In essence, they cannot leave their homes safely. So picture the worst moment of lockdown during COVID. It’s that, plus if you leave, you face imminent violence by way of Taliban police on the street, also known as moral police, checking your identity, checking if you are wearing your hijab correctly, which has to be full face coverage now, which has to be full body coverage," Cruickshank said.
Women are banned from most all areas of employment, with limited exceptions. For the small number who can work, salaries are increasingly being cut.
"They have been stripped of every human right on the list. Basically, unless they have access to internet, [they] have no place to access knowledge or interact with anyone outside of their immediate families," Cruickshank said.
The rules have become increasingly strict under Taliban rule. Cruickshank described the stages in "increments," with each stage becoming worse.
"To begin with, it was schools and employment. Then it became having to wear a full covering over the body, and having to leave the house strictly with a family chaperone. Then it was just increased crackdowns on any excuse for women to be arrested," Cruickshank said. "It comes in waves, and it just continues to get more and more extreme. And every time it does, I think most of us think this is the worst that it could possibly get, and then it gets worse yet."
During this time with tightening rules, the number of people in poverty has gotten worse throughout the past three years. The United Nations says that the number of Afghans living in poverty grew from 19 million in 2020 to 34 million within three years.
"My students, many of them are developing health problems due to lack of nutrition such as not enough Vitamin B and Vitamin C or D because they can’t afford to buy more than rice to eat," Cruickshank said.
Unveiled Voices' work
When Cruickshank learned how she could help by talking with Afghan refugees, she quickly became connected with an underground school. Education past the sixth grade is banned for girls and women.
"So no high school, no middle school, no university," Cruickshank said. "It's actually outlawed."
Through the self-empowerment course, which makes up the largest portion of their education program, Voices Unveiled focuses on women and providing them validation and support to have a reason to continue living.
"They feel forgotten. There is no country in the world that has challenged the Taliban or advocated for the women, and they are very hyperaware of this and they really feel forgotten," Cruickshank said.
In one poem written by a student as a part of Voices Unveiled's courses, the student shared how voiceless she is:
"A woman. This is me, a woman. They robbed me of my femininity. They stoned me for the crime of loving. They buried me alive for saying no. This is my house, a place where, I, as a woman have no role. I am like this. Seeing my hair is a crime. My loud laughter is disgraceful and sinful. Have you heard the sound of my laughter? How foreign this voice is to me. I didn’t even realize how foreign this voice is to me. What does it sound like to you? Listen to how delicately sad it is. The place of the slap still remains on my blue face. You don't bother me anymore. I love your manly hands, but don't touch my mouth. Let me speak. Hear my voice. I have words."
"What has moved me personally the most is knowing them, in many ways, they are the teachers. Even though I have the role of teacher, because they have a resiliency that I have never known, an optimism that is just absolutely humbling. With the slightest bit of encouragement, the slightest bit of support and validation, they can continue to go on and feel energized and encouraged despite tremendous, unimaginable challenges," Cruickshank said.
One day, Cruickshank hopes that she will be able to point students toward restoration rather than survival.
The team accepts donations like sponsoring a student through their program for a semester or a year. They also will help provide emergency funds for things like food and medical care. Volunteers are also needed to provide workshops in their areas of expertise as well as the courses already provided.