Advocating for education in Afghanistan

When Lauryn Oates was 14 years old she read an article about how the Taliban was treating women and girls. 

"It really angered me what I was reading," she recalled. "I couldn't imagine that girls like me weren't allowed to go to school. This was a real wake-up call for me - not only that the Taliban were doing it, but that they were getting away with it."

It changed Oates' world. She turned her outrage into action. She learned everything she could about women's rights. She circulated petitions. As a teenager she went on her first trip to Kabul.

"I just walked out of that plane, smelled the air and looked around at the mountains and had this very deep sense of having come home somehow," she said.

Oates kept on returning to Afghanistan to work with girls and women who wanted an education.

"There was one girl named Zarifa and she was so bright," recalled Oates. "She was a trouble maker. So independant and smart. She wanted to be a reporter."

Despite Oates' efforts, Zarifa didn't complete her education. "In Afghanistan when you get married a price is paid for a bride," explained Oates.

"So when Zarifa was 16 her brother married her off to a man in his '40s....She was shortly pregnant after being married and then had a second baby on the way, all before she was 18 years old.....Her dream of being a journalist was over. Her dream of education was over."

Oates believes strongly in the power of literacy to empower women in Afghanistan. 

Through her interviews with women there she learned that they wanted to be able to read street signs; they wanted to be able to read labels on medicine bottles; they wanted to be able to help their kids with homework; they wanted to be able to read their husbands' texts.

"One older woman told me she wanted to be able to sit on the local council and be part of the decision making in her community," said Oates. "She wanted to be taken seriously."

Oates has made more than 50 trips to Afghanistan. She says Canadians are more alike than different to Afghans. 

"At the end of the day, we all want the same things. People want their kids to go to school, make something of themselves. They want to put food on the table. They want quality of life," Oates said.

"Pain to Afghans feels the same as pain to us and joy to Afghans feels the same as joy to us. That's the most important thing that I've learned in Afghanistan."