Sakena Yacoobi, the founder of Afghan Institute of Learning, says she hopes that educating women will bring peace to Afghanistan. The 61-year-old Afghan first started refugee schools in Pakistan, then underground girls’ schools in Afghanistan under the Taliban. After the regime's 2001 ouster, she opened scores of women's centers teaching basic reading, math, sewing and health skills. Her programs currently serve about 350,000 women and children a year. It costs her about $1.5 million a year.

Afghan Institute of Learning, or 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.