This past week I have been couped up at home, sick. The forced down time provided me with an opportunity to do virtually nothing other than watch some TV. In my opinion, there is not a lot that is worth watching. I keep up on the news and world events by surfing the various news or purported news venues for the various slants of what is happening. I try to distill from the various viewpoints what the truth is. like the famous quote… “There are three sides to every story. Yours. Mine. What really happened: the truth.” Part of the current news cycle is the Murdaugh murders, with the father Alex Murdaugh trying to recant his many lies on the witness stand. And the renewed Russian offensive on the Ukraine, with war crimes being carried out. Or the constant political battles from both sides, without an ounce of humility or integrity, in NOT trying and find a common ground solution for the betterment of all. The dark side of humanity is highlighted and showcased. It can be depressing.
I choose not to be depressed and am constantly looking for things to refuel me. I look for things to provide me a better outlook. I then turned on 60 Minutes. The two featured segments counterbalanced the dark side I mentioned above. The first segment was “Kherson, Ukraine, withstands constant Russian attacks after occupation ends – 60 Minutes – CBS News.” The second segment covered “SOLA: Daring to educate Afghanistan’s girls – CBS News.”
The first segment featured Halyna Luhova, who used to be a school-teacher and a city council member in Kherson. Ukraine’s president put Luhova in charge of rebuilding Kherson, effectively making her its mayor. This everyday person elevated herself, on the behalf of others, to manage aid distribution, power outages and an avalanche of problems caused by Russian shelling. She did this while her life is in constant danger. She has become a target in this highly contested city. True heroism. An inspiration!
The second segment presented Shabana Basij-Rasikh, who is SOLA’s founder and single-minded leader. SOLA is a girl’s only school for woman of Afghanistan. At 32, Shabana started creating SOLA when she was still a student herself in Afghanistan. Her story — and her commitment to educating girls — goes back to 1996, when Afghanistan fell to the Taliban the first time. She was 6 years old, and all girls’ schools were closed. But Shabana’s parents, a former general and an educator, refused to keep their daughters locked up at home. They heard about a secret school run out of a former principal’s living room and saw an opportunity, despite the danger, for Shabana and her older sister to be educated. Fast forward to 2016, SOLA, a school that Shabana had started, expanded to become a full-fledged 6-12th grade girls boarding school — the only one in Afghanistan, funded as a U.S. nonprofit through grants and donations. Then in April of 2021, the US announced an unconditional exit. Things changed FAST. Women were ordered to cover themselves head to toe again. They’re banned from public parks and, just months ago, banned from universities as well. History repeating itself. Shaban has created a story of hope in smuggling a few hundred women students out of Afghanistan to set us a new school outside the country called SOLA. SOLA is the Afghan word for peace and also short for School of Leadership Afghanistan. Although they had to flee Afghanistan in a harrowing escape, the girls of SOLA are back in the classroom, half a world away in Kigali, Rwanda — a land-locked African nation that was once the site of a horrific genocide that killed nearly a million and left 2 million refugees. Rwanda is now at peace and has become an unlikely place of refuge for the last year and a half to the girls of SOLA who hope to one day return to their homeland and leaders. An amazing story of resilience. An Inspiration!!
Heroes give us hope. Heroes prove to us that no matter how much suffering there is in the world, there are supremely good people around whom we can count on to do the right thing, even when most other people are not. Heroes validate our preferred moral worldview. It did for me. I hope that it does the same for you:)