In Afghanistan, a girls’ school is the story of a village | See Pics

Even in Salar, changes are afoot, beginning with the villagers’ insistence on their local elementary school for girls. That insistence helped push the Taliban to accept a new, small school, funded by international donors.

Mina Ahmed smears a cement mixture to strengthen the walls of her war-ravaged home in rural Afghanistan. Her hands, worn by the labor, are bandaged with plastic scraps and elastic bands, but no matter, she welcomes the new era of peace under the Taliban.

She was once apprehensive of the group’s severe style of rule in her village of Salar. But being caught in the crosshairs of a two-decade long war has granted her a new perspective.