Message from an Afghan Girl

The below entry was sent to us by a girl in Afghanistan.

Sometimes the hardest part is that Afghan girls are not facing just one restriction; they are living every day with the feeling of opportunities being taken away from them.

A girl who could have become a doctor, a teacher, an engineer, or anything she dreamed of becoming, now faces an uncertain future.

A girl who no longer wakes up excited to go to school or university, but instead wakes up wondering what part of her life will be restricted again today.

Many girls have been forced to hide their dreams, put away their books, and spend the years they should have used to build their futures simply waiting.

It is painful when you have the ability, the motivation, and the dreams, but you are not given the opportunity to show what you can do.

It is painful when doors are closed to you simply because you are a girl, while those same doors remain open to others.

And still, Afghan girls have hope. They continue to learn, to dream, and to believe that this situation cannot last forever.

And I believe that one day, I will talk about these difficult times,  about the days when we stayed silent, the dreams that were left unfinished, the tears no one saw, and the hardships we had to endure.

Maybe one day, we will look back and say, “We went through a difficult time, but we did not give up.”

These days may one day become a painful memory, but we will tell our stories so that no one forgets what Afghan girls went through, what they lost, what they dreamed of, and how they kept going despite everything.

One day, we will talk about these days. And when that day comes, we will remember that we survived them 

(A Voice Unheard)