Q: You had to flee Afghanistan, but you’re still regularly in contact with many women and girls there. You listen to what these women had to say about their lives today. What do you hear?

A: I think the one thing I really want to highlight is the fact that women and young girls still want to go to school. They still want to work. They still want to breathe the fresh air and go to parks and enjoy going to salons and stuff.The only thing that you hear from them is how supplicating it is, how it’s an open-air prison, and how they are not allowed to do anything but breathe.

Q: You somehow found a way to continue running schools in secret in Afghanistan, not on the scale you could when you lived there, but what are you able to do there today?

A: So, right now, we have five schools in five different provinces of Afghanistan: in Kandahar, Helmand, Bamyan, Daykundi, and Herat. We’re hoping to expand to other provinces. We’re in the midst of it.

We have around 661 students since we last spoke. But the sad reality is that, last week, we had to close down our Kandahar school and switch to online because of the intelligence reports and how they are being surveilled. So we find ways to work, and we continue to do so.

But it is not an easy job. Running a school in Afghanistan right now is the toughest thing to do.

Q: The longer they’re in power, it feels like the more restrictive the Taliban get. What does that mean for the future of your schools?

A: I think two things. The first is that Afghan women have to be more innovative in ways we approach everything in Afghanistan: education, health care, human rights, women rights, mental health spaces—Afghanistan has the highest suicide rates for women right now. So it’s all of that all together.

Q: What about when it comes to international pressure or US pressure? Does anyone that you talk to in Afghanistan or do you yourself think that that kind of public pressure that we haven’t really seen, especially from the US, could get the Taliban to reverse course in any way?

A: I think right now the US has found one chief watchman for Afghanistan. As long as [the takeover] doesn’t impact anything outside of Afghanistan, it’s okay for them.

And I think that has been the attitude towards Afghanistan so far for the past three years. And that’s going to continue, because the U.N. literally brought [the Taliban] into Qatar and talked to them without even bringing in Afghan women. That has happened in the past three years and even before that in Qatar.

They have offices all over. They [the Taliban] are being recognized in all these countries. So I think the US is complacent in many ways. They are turning a blind eye. Every time an ambassador is accepted in other countries, the U.S. doesn’t say anything or do anything.

I don’t think their engagement will bring any changes either.

Q: When you look at what has happened under the Taliban rule in the last three years, do you ever think about what would have happened if you stayed?

A: This morning, one of my friends posted a field that said ‘Imagine another time where we didn’t leave home.’ It was all beautiful scenery of Afghanistan and the actual national flag of Afghanistan.

And I imagined if we all had stayed. Afghanistan might have been a different place.

But then, at the same time, if we all stayed, would we have made it out? Would we have been doing all the things that we do right now?

Would I be running schools, or would I be literally begging for documentation in the neighboring countries? Would I even be alive? Like, all of those things. So, it’s hard to imagine, but it definitely takes a toll on you.

Keep girls learning by donating to Pashtana Durrani’s nonprofit LEARN Afghan today.

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This is an edited version of the PBS interview between activist Pashtana Durrani and journalist Amna Nawaz. Questions and answers were edited for concision and clarity. Click here to watch the full interview.

Mothers and children in Afghanistan are also facing a hunger crisis of growing danger. You can support them with a gift to GlobalGiving’s Afghanistan Emergency Fund.