Afghanistan’s mother of education awarded the WISE Prize for Education

Sheikha Moza (left) presenting the award to Dr. Yacoobi (right).

Dr. Sakeena Yacoobi, also known as Afghanistan’s “Mother of Education” was awarded the 2015 WISE Prize for Education today in Doha, Qatar. The prize was awarded to her by Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the chairperson of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. In attendance were well known women personalities from around the world, such as 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Leymah Gwobee, and the American First Lady, Michelle Obama. This year’s WISE Prize is worth $500,000.

Sixty-five year-old Dr. Yacoobi is the Executive Director of the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL), an Afghan women-led organization she founded in 1995. The organization provides teacher training, education and health services to women and children. In fact, AIL was the first organization to offer human rights and leadership training to Afghan women in the 1990s. AIL even supported 80 underground home schools for 3000 girls in Afghanistan during the Taliban regime.

In her acceptance speech, Dr. Yacoobi, said, “I feel honored and blessed to be chosen as this year’s WISE Prize for Education Laureate. It is particularly meaningful because this is such a crucial time in Afghanistan. My people live in terror and poverty. They are suffering and feel hopeless. Yet, at this moment a light has appeared. With this Prize, we know that we can continue to educate more and more Afghans, giving them hope and encouraging them to go forward no matter what they are facing. It is such a great gift to me, and I dedicate the Prize to the Afghan Institute of Learning and all of the women, men and children we are educating.”

Dr. Yacoobi’s vision for Afghanistan is a free country, a society where everybody is educated, especially every single girl.