The School of Leadership, Afghanistan (SOLA) is Afghanistan’s first and only boarding school for girls. SOLA enrolls more than 80 girls in grades 6-10 at its Kabul campus, with students hailing from 26 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. SOLA pursues a growth model through which it adds a new class of 6th graders annually; by 2022, SOLA aims to enroll more than 100 girls in grades 6-12, representing every province in Afghanistan.
SOLA operates against the backdrop of a 63% illiteracy rate for Afghan teenage girls, and does its work in a country where nearly 3 million girls are out of school and 33% of Afghan girls are married before their 18th birthdays. SOLA’s leadership-driven curriculum takes students from believing their role in society is to raise a family to becoming critical thinkers who understand they have the power to shape their nation’s future.