Stories of Transformation

Transforming Lives for Women in Afghanistan with Fereshteh Forough

Episode Notes

Our guest, Fereshteh Forough, is the CEO and Founder of Code to Inspire, a coding school for girls in Afghanistan that has already transformed the lives of 150+ women. We discuss how the school works and the amazing life-changing impact it has had for these girls and their community. We then talked about Fereshteh’s fascinating origin story, her experiences and challenges of being a refugee, facing discrimination and needing to constantly hide her true identity, and what psychological impacts this left on her. But despite all of the changes and roadblocks she’s faced, she’s learned to open her mind, accept the various cultures that have been a part of her life, and incorporate them into her company. By embracing all of these diverse beliefs, experiences, struggles, and successes into her being, she has both redefined what “home” means to her and interwoven every piece of diversity into her company.

Memorable Quotes

Code to Inspire

"Not a lot of people believed in us. They thought, oh it's just a short term project for a couple months. But we've been in this space for four years and we've proved that we're not here for short term. After the first six months, we actually had a father and brother of one of the girls who wanted to come check out the space because they saw such a difference in their daughter."

Being a refugee

"The negativity around being a refugee I think is something that a lot of people first think about refugees. That you come to one city to steal the opportunity from people to get the jobs. To my perspective as a real refugee, it's not something the refugees are doing. It's a beauty of diversity and in differences and people helping the community to thrive and grow. To me that's the beauty of the refugees going somewhere and introducing their cultures to other people and learn from other's culture."