Anay Sabhnani is leading an effort to help girls and young women in Afghanistan get an education following the Talibans ban on school for females over age 12 when it returned to power in 2022.

The 17-year-old from 4S Ranch is a senior at High Bluff Academy in Rancho Santa Fe. He is president of the school’s Flowers for the Future Club, which provides an online tutoring program for a secret education effort with 500 female students in Kabul from sixth grade to young adult.

“In Afghanistan girls are being denied access to education for no reason, so we should be involved,” Sabhnani said.

The program is paid through a grant with an organization that he declined to name for security reasons.

Through High Bluff Academy, the Kabul students can earn an official high school diploma, said Jill Duoto, HBA’s director and founder.

“They have teachers defying the ban, meeting five days per week in person,” Duoto said. “I do not know how the Taliban has not shut them down. … There’s no hiding 500 girls at two locations.”

The program started two years ago through High Bluff Academy. In May, the first group of seven students graduated. This school year 32 seniors are enrolled, said Duoto, who is helping them with their academic transcripts. The students have male teachers and must be completely covered in black attire.

“It is making life tolerable for these girls,” she said.

Flowers for the Future members spend their evenings tutoring the girls online. The club also has provided them with 150 laptop computers and WiFi service.

But Sabhnani’s efforts go beyond just being involved in the club since its inception.

He spent six weeks last summer in Tajikistan learning Persian so he can communicate better with the girls, and he is executive director of the nonprofit organization Compass 4 Humanity. He also wrote the book “Afghan Diaries” to share the story of Afghan girls and women.

The book was published last month and is available for purchase through Amazon.

“(It) speaks about life in Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover and focuses on the Taliban events that led up to it,” Sabhnani said.

Afghan Diaries details the stories of two young women he met through his activities. To protect them, their names and identifiable information have been changed, he said. The book looks at the perspectives of women’s lives in present-day Kabul and other areas of Afghanistan. One of the young women is now living in a European country, he said. The other he met while he was studying in Tajikistan.

Anay Sabhnani holding his book, “Afghan Diaries,” which was published in early Oct.. Through two young womens accounts, it explains the situation in Afghanistan for females since the Taliban regained power in 2022. (Courtesy of Anay Sabhnani)

“It was four months of heavy writing,” Sabhnani said of his first-time effort. The book is self-published.

“Afghan Diaries” is available for $8.99 (paperback) and $5.69 (Kindle version) through Amazon.

Sabhnani gets $4 from each book sold; hes donating $2 to the program and saving $2 for his college needs, he said.

“I wanted to raise funds for the Afghan girls,” he said.

His school director has nothing but praise for Sabhnani.

“Anay is an amazing kid,” Duoto said, mentioning that the teen has spent many hours fundraising and researching to support High Bluff’s program.

The Afghan teachers and students are fluent in English, Sabhnani said, so while their in-person classes are in subjects such as science and math, the other required courses to earn an American high school diploma — such as history, American government and electives — are taught online. Not only is High Bluff Academy involved, but so are schools across the world.

“It is peer-to-peer education and while befriending them we get to know more about their lives,” Sabhnani said.

“They are doing phenomenally,” Duoto said. “We can talk about anything (online) and if they read something they don’t understand, they look it up.

A high school diploma and official school transcript are necessary if the Afghan students want to apply to colleges and universities worldwide, since they are banned from attending college in their home country.

While some have been accepted to universities in the U.S., Canada and Europe, without financial assistance that covers all costs (tuition, room and board) it is not financially feasible for them attend. They also must obtain a visa to leave their country, Duoto said. They have often received tuition scholarships, but no money for room and board.

“It is heartbreaking because they are so deserving and hardworking,” Duoto said. “They have nowhere to go. … In their country they can only be a midwife or elementary teacher.”

Duoto said High Bluff Academy has been working hard to find college scholarships and grants that will pay for all college expenses, but has so far been unsuccessful.

“For room and board they need to come up with another $20,000,” she said. “We need a rich person to say they will sponsor the girls. We help them get the (high school) diploma, but can’t help with the rest.”

Online colleges often do not give scholarship money either, she said.

Sabhnani, the son of 4S Ranch residents Ritika and Manoj Sabhani, said his study abroad program was made possible through a National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) Scholarship. The program awarded 445 scholarships this past year to teens who wanted to study Persian (Tajiki), Hindi, Korean, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Indonesian, Turkish and Arabic. The participants live with a host family during their six-week program.

“In my Tajikistan group, there were 12 of us from across the country,” Sabhnani said.

Hes also involved with Compass 4 Humanity, which is geared toward and run by students that give free virtual and in-person math and English tutoring to refugee and Indian children. It also focuses on refugee policy.

“We solicit lawmakers to know what provisions are available for refugees and how they can be accessed,” he said. “I work with a lot of Afghan refugees through the organization, which also gave me a lot of inspiration to learn Persian and connect with them. … We are working in over 40 states and provinces across the U.S. and Canada.”

For more about the organization, visit compass4humanity.org.

Sabhnani said he wants to study international relations or political science and is interested in a law or foreign service career.

“I love helping people,” he said.