It has been a tough journey for women in Afghanistan. One after the other, opportunities have vanished. Like so many other Afghan women, Sodaba could do little but watch as her country's new Taliban government imposed a stranglehold on women's lives.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 and quickly set about implementing a dizzying array of restrictions for women — no visiting parks or gyms, no eating in restaurants, no working, except in very few professions. But one of the cruellest blows for the pharmacology student was the ban on education beyond primary school.
Pushed by necessity, she went online. And there, she found hope: a free computer coding course for women in Afghanistan. Taught in her own language, Dari, by a young Afghan refugee living half a world away, in Greece!
“I believe a person should not be awed by circumstance, but should grow and get their dreams through every possible way,” Sodaba said. She began learning computer programming and website development.
The courses are part of Afghan Geeks, a company created by Murtaza Jafari, now 25, who arrived in Greece on a boat from Turkiye years ago as a teenage refugee.
While living in a shelter in Athens, Jafari received help from a teacher to enrol in a computer coding course. He knew nothing about computers — not even how to switch one on—didn't know what coding was and didn't speak a word of English, essential for computer programming.
“I had no idea about English. No idea, like zero,” he said. “And I was trying at the same time to learn Greek, learn English and then also learn computers. … It was super difficult for me.” But several months later, he earned his certificate.
Coding opened up a new world. A couple of years ago, he set up Afghan Geeks.
Jafari said he started providing online courses last December to help women in his homeland, and as an expression of gratitude for the help he received as a youngster, alone in a foreign country.
“The main goal was to give back to the community, especially to the Afghan women, what I had received from the other people for free,” he said, sitting in his sparse one-room flat in downtown Athens. Jafari now has 28 female students in Afghanistan in three classes: beginner, intermediate and advanced.
Aside from teaching, he also mentors his students in finding online internships and jobs using their new skills. For women in a country where nearly all professions are banned, the opportunity for online work is a lifeline.
The most qualified join his team at Afghan Geeks, which also offers website development and chatbot creation services. He now has several clients from Afghanistan, the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe.
Although he's been teaching his students for seven months, Jafari has never seen their faces. He asks how they are and what the situation in Afghanistan is, “But I've never asked them to open their cameras or to share their profile, to share the image. I've never done that. I don't want to do it because I respect their culture, their choice.”
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