Bravery at it's Best

Razia Jan is an Afghani woman who was nominated for the CNN everyday heroes’ award. Razia lived in the United States for the majority of her life but after 9/11 she felt she needed to return to her home country and try to make a positive impact. In Afghanistan women’s rights are often oppressed and Razia wanted to empower Afghanistan’s future generations, primarily the girls. Razia opened an all-girls school in 2008 that offers a free education to young girls that would otherwise not get the opportunity of one. Razia mentioned that when most of the girls first began attending the school, most of them could not even write their own names. There are now over 350 girls that are receiving a free educating from Razia’s school. Razia has faced many obstacles in trying to promote this positive change, mostly from certain men in the community that hold power and do not think women should be educated. Even up to the very night before the school opened, men came and threatened Razia to turn her school into a boy’s school, she refused. The school has faced lots of threats and even a grenade bombing that was the cause of many fatalities. Razia doesn’t let that stop her though; she believes educating these girls with help to make Afghanistan’s future more positive. Change is always met with adversity in the beginning but little by little Razia is seeing people’s perspective on female education change. She said a lot of the father’s go from being angry about their daughter’s being in school to being proud. Razia is no doubt a very brave woman to stand up for what is right even when the danger risk is high. She is inspiring people to embrace change and changing the lives of so many people in the process.

You can watch a short video about what Razia is doing by clicking on the link below:
       
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/world/2012/08/02/hero-razia-jan.cnn