Photo Credit:
Mustafa Quraishi
 
Photo Caption:
Afghan women attend a center at the Afghan Institute of Learning in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 16, 2011. Sakena Yacoobi's AIL has grown from a few makeshift schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the mid-1990s to an organization running schools, women's learning centers, day care centers and clinics across seven of the 34 Afghan provinces. Yacoobi says it costs her about $1.5 million a year. 
 
Photographer's Note:
 
"Though the country has seen decades of war and fighting, and is considered one of the poorest in the world, the people I would meet here were without a doubt, some of the nicest I have come across in all my years in photojournalism.

I remember visiting a refugee camp of internally displaced people on a day I was fasting in the holy month of Ramadan. Tents in the camp were made of torn pieces of cloth, children were rummaging through garbage for food, and a tent with a dozen elders invited me over to break my fast with them over one slice of a watermelon and bread that was to be shared amongst all. I broke my fast with a cigarette instead. 
 
In Afghanistan, I learnt to say “Shukran” (thank you in Arabic), and continue to do so in my everyday life for we do not realize what we have until we witness and feel the pain of others.”