Why Can They Go to School While I Cannot?

Sana’s Story

A Banoo Foundation Story of Interrupted Education, Resilience, and Hope

August 15, 2021 is a date Sana will never forget. She was 15 years old and in Grade 6, still young enough to believe that school would always be part of her life. She had books to carry, lessons to learn, friends to sit beside, and dreams that felt possible because there was still time to pursue them.

Before that day, school was ordinary in the best possible way. Sana woke up, got ready, packed her books, and went to class. She worried about homework and tests, listened to her teachers, laughed with her classmates, and imagined herself moving from one grade to the next. She did not know that these simple routines would soon become memories she would ache to have back.

When the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, Sana’s life changed almost overnight. Her education was interrupted, and the classroom that had once been part of her everyday world became inaccessible. The desk where she had studied, the voices of her teachers, and the familiar company of her friends were suddenly replaced by uncertainty.

At first, she believed the closure would be temporary. She waited for an announcement that girls could return. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Months became years. The promise of going back to school kept moving further away.

“When I see boys going to school, I feel so sad and disappointed. I wonder why they can go to school and I cannot.”

For Sana, watching boys her age continue their education is one of the most painful reminders of what was taken from her. Their school days continue. Their grades advance. Their plans are allowed to grow. She is left asking a question no child should have to ask: why is education available to them, but denied to me?

That question follows her when she looks at her old schoolbooks. She thinks about the grade she might be in now, the subjects she might be studying, the friends she might still be seeing every day, and the person she might be becoming if her education had been allowed to continue.

She remembers the girl she was before August 15: writing in notebooks, sitting beside classmates, listening carefully in lessons, and imagining a future shaped by learning. She was only in Grade 6. There should have been many school years ahead of her.

What Sana lost was not only classroom instruction. She also lost the experiences that make up a childhood: the excitement of a new school year, seeing friends after a break, discovering a favourite subject, receiving encouragement from a teacher, and slowly learning what she was capable of becoming.

For many girls, education is described as a path to opportunity. For Sana, it has become something even more fundamental: a symbol of freedom, dignity, equality, and the right to decide her own future.

And yet, Sana refuses to believe that August 15 must be the day her dreams ended.

She still wants to learn. She still wants to study. She still believes that a classroom should never be a privilege reserved for boys. The years away from school have not erased her desire for education; they have made its value even clearer.

Sana continues to hold on to her books, her memories, and the future she once imagined. She knows the road ahead is uncertain, but she does not accept that someone else should have the final say over what her life can become simply because she is a girl.

One day, she hopes to walk into a classroom again, sit at a desk, open a book, and hear a teacher begin a lesson. She hopes that girls will be sitting around her too – learning, laughing, asking questions, making plans, and dreaming without fear that the doors will close again.

Until that day, Sana holds on to hope.

August 15, 2021 changed the course of her life, but it does not have to define the rest of it. Her education was interrupted. Her opportunities were restricted. But her ambition, her dignity, and her dreams are still her own.

Sana’s story is one among millions. It is a reminder that behind every statistic about girls denied education in Afghanistan is a young person with a name, a classroom she remembers, a future she imagined, and a question the world should not ignore: Why can they go to school while I cannot?

Sana’s Story | Banoo Foundation

Documenting the voices, rights, and resilience of Afghan women and girls.