On today’s episode of Justice Matters co-host Maggie Gates speaks with Lucy Ferris about the all volunteer network of professors from around the world educating women in Afghanistan.

Professor Ferris is the co-founder and president of the board of Afghan Female Student Outreach (AFSO), a volunteer non-profit organization committed to helping return Afghan women to intellectual and professional life by way of real-time, synchronous distance learning in the liberal arts and sciences, engineering, and health sciences, taught by university professors from around the world. She is a novelist and Writer in Residence emerita from Trinity College, as well as the author of a dozen books of fiction and nonfiction. She did research for her work among the Pashtun area of northwest Pakistan and has been active with a number of charitable organizations, including the Authors Guild, Jewish Family Services, Planned Parenthood, the Brigid Foundation, and Women for Women International. She holds a Ph.D. from Tufts University. In addition to her work with AFSO, she teaches Afghan refugees in the United States.

In this episode’s conversation they discuss: the current state of women’s education in Afghanistan, the changes that took place prior to the most recent US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the origins of AFSO, the logistics of how volunteer professors from outside the country are able to deliver online education in a country with limited internet access, why continuing women’s education is so important for Afghan society even when their employment and formal education opportunities are being restricted by the Taliban, the impact of USAID’s closure on organizations educating women in Afghanistan, the changing role of the US in global education, and the resilience of female students in Afghanistan.