When I was in high school, I started a writing group and literary magazine which was contributed to by young authors from New York and Kabul. For the first three years of the program, I grew so much as a writer and had the opportunity to collaborate and learn from my incredible peers. When the Taliban took over the city, the group had to stop meeting over Zoom. Many of the female writers from Kabul had to cease attending their schools. Watching my friends go through this, and hearing them vent about their frustration at being kept from learning has motivated me to seek opportunities to empower and enable women to have access to education in places where that access is under threat.