Finding hope through the browser window

“Everything about this course is wonderful and extraordinary.”

“Before starting this class, I was sitting at home, unemployed and depressed. I was thinking about my future. What is going to happen? When do schools open? After the class, I was completely changed. I had no knowledge of coding because, in Afghanistan, coding is rarely taught. This made me focus on my studies all day, so I completely forgot about my pain.”

“This program has changed my life in an incredible way. It was a very useful and effective program for us Afghan girls in this difficult situation. We can have a bright future by learning coding.”

The words above come from anonymous young Afghan women who have been taking web development classes online via the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Afghan Pathways Program, a series of skills-based short courses offered for free by the Technology and Applied Computing Program, or TAC (until recently, it was known as the Information Technology Program), in partnership with the nonprofit HerFuture Afghanistan.

In August 2021, the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. Around 15 million women and girls living in the country faced draconian new restrictions on their freedoms and their ability to participate in public life. They were banned from attending university or having jobs. After two decades of democracy, countless female workers — pilots, doctors, engineers, public servants — were forced to abandon their careers.

For HerFuture Afghanistan executive director Naheed Farid, the crisis facing Afghan women was personal. Farid was the youngest-ever elected politician and lawmaker in Afghanistan, taking office in the Afghan Parliament in 2010. After 2021, the Taliban refused to recognize her elected role, and Farid was forced to flee the country. She felt guilty about the constituents she left behind and was determined to find a way to continue fighting for the women and girls of her homeland.

“The situation on the ground is a suffocating crackdown on women. A gender apartheid,” Farid said. “Women are basically prohibited from any sphere of life. They cannot go out without a male chaperone. The legal and political establishment does not support women, so domestic violence, child marriage and forced marriage are on the rise. This is the life that women of Afghanistan are suffering through.”

However, for those wanting to regain some of their freedoms, there was one potential loophole: They could still study at home. Farid and her organization met with USC Viterbi Dean Yannis C. Yortsos to figure out a solution that could help the many young women who were placing their lives on hold.

“USC was the main organization that was brave enough to start helping women at the most sensitive time,” Farid said.

Through the Afghan Pathways Program, USC Viterbi professors Trina Gregory and Nayeon Kim meet remotely with students over 12 weeks, teaching them how to create websites and code in Python. Female Afghan students have earned 161 certificates in web development and Python programming so far.

The process requires discretion. Participants must be vetted or referred by trusted sources to ensure the safety of all students. The students must then connect to the class with anonymous IDs not connected to their email addresses. On top of that, many students face infrastructure challenges, such as access to reliable internet and computers.

However, for some of those who have taken part, the program offers the critical career skills that could enable them to circumvent the restrictions they face and become self-sufficient. Farid said that some students have found jobs working from home, and others now can apply for overseas scholarships. Kim said that previous students in the program were also volunteering as learning assistants for the new cohort, with one student saving money to provide laptops for students who couldn’t afford them.

“The Afghan assistants are phenomenal. They are passionate about helping their peers and have built a community through this program that supports each other in their difficult situation,” Kim said.

USC Viterbi Afghan Pathways Program co-director Kendra Walther said, “This program provides such great learning opportunities, not only for the women on the ground in Afghanistan but for all of us at USC who get a glimpse into the courage, bravery and zest for learning of each of our participants.”

“The pathways program is not just a program,” Farid said. “When I talk to the women on the ground, they say, ‘When we look at the window of our laptop, this is the window of hope. It’s not just a screen.’ ”