The Emmy-nominated documentary trailer of #GirlRising opens with recorded broadcast news of 14 yr. old #Malala Yousafzai shot in the head for fighting for girls’ rights to education in #Afghanistan. Nine girls from different countries – Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Nepal, Egypt, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Peru, India, and Haiti – are then introduced; all with distinct stories that reflect their continuous struggle to rise above their nations’ sociocultural barriers.

Meanwhile in Los Angeles, Marilyn Gordanier, founder of Laurel Springs, the first online school in the United States, had insider access to the Afghanistan section of the series as her own daughter, Ramaa Mosley, was filming this particular story. “She tells a story of a little girl, Amina, who’s forced into marriage at 11 and gives birth to a baby at 12. I just felt so disturbed by this story, since I had a chance to see the edits over and over,” Marilyn recalled.

The scenes from the documentary kept recurring in her head and Marilyn felt compelled to dig deeper. Her daughter then introduced her to the writer of the Afghan bit, Zarghuna Kargar or Zari as she is commonly called, who is from the BBC World Service in London. They met in New York and she immediately told Zari that she wanted to help the Afghan children, but didn’t know how as she’s not fully aware of what their needs were like.

“She said that one of the things that is missing is so simple – and that is if children are fed and clothed, then their parents don’t feel compelled to sell them or have them begged. They want them to go to school. The mothers want to send them to school. So, we began a project called Food 4 School.”

Read more about Food4School at The Inkline:

Food 4 School: Feeding and educating Afghan girls