Every morning for nearly a decade, CNN Hero Razia Jan drank a cup of water from her school's well to make sure it hadn’t been poisoned overnight by the Taliban.   She works in a part of Afghanistan where girls face unimaginable obstacles just to attend school. They must face the threat of getting acid thrown onto their faces, risk buying snacks with grenades hidden inside them, and make sure nobody has sprayed poisoned gas into their classrooms. Razia Jan worked as a tailor and dry cleaner before starting Razia's Ray of Hope Foundation in 2008, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of women and children in Afghanistan through education. She operates the Zabuli Education Center, a school that she founded in rural Afghanistan that provides a free education to 625 girls.  Please leave a review of the episode on iTunes and/or Stitcher. Show Notes for Razia Jan Razia was a single mother when she started her own tailoring and dry cleaning shop Even as a tailor, Razia was involved in community volunteering Razia was the only Afghani in her entire town during 9/11 After 9/11, Razia sent blankets and quilts to the Ground Zero rescue mission Razia sent care packages and 30,000 shoes to the US Army during the war in Afghanistan Razia returned to Afghanistan after 9/11, 38 years after she had moved to the US. During that visit, she could not find her old home as everything had been destroyed When Razia opened the Zabuli Education Center, they started with just 100 girls The students at the Zabuli Education Center learn both Arabic and English When Razia Jan joined the local Rotary Club, she was the only woman, and the only Muslim She simply tried to blend in at the Rotary Club and eventually became the President “Service Above Self” -Rotary International Razia has been a part of Rotary International for 20 years “You can’t do things on your own.” All the houses in the village are mud houses and the roads are unpaved. There are no trees in the village Drought has affected Razia’s village where many families depend on their grape orchards to make a living Razia Jan lived in Afghanistan for eight years (2007-2015) so she could be present 24/7 at the project In 1920, the king of Afghanistan had built a boy’s school that was later destroyed. It was on that land that Razia Jan began building the Zabuli Education Center for girls The land, by then a garbage dump, was given to Razia by the Ministry of Education The community wanted a boys school at first, and not a girls school The community members said that the boys were the backbone of Afghanistan and they needed to improve their future. Razia answered: “The girls are the eyes of Afghanistan. And unfortunately, you all are blind.” The community members did not like Razia’s vision at first, but ten years later, they finally understand the importance of girls education “If you educate a boy, you educate a boy. If you educate a girl, you educate the whole family.” In the community, it is common for girls to get married as young as age ten A family can get a dowry payment by marrying off their daughters A mayor in the village decided to marry a 16-year-old girl. In exchange, he wanted to marry off his daughter (in the 10th grade) to the 70 year old father of the bride. After the marriage, the daughter of the mayor was beaten repeatedly, her ribs and nose were broken, and she was burned by the new family. She refused to stay in the marriage and in the end, her father supported her and brought her back. That girl just graduated from school and is going to a midwife college. The documentary about Razia’s work, What Tomorrow Brings, took seven years to create In the trailer, Razia Jan is deciding where the blackboard should go during the construction of the third story of the school building. I asked her what was going throug