Photo: Facebook/Sonia Shah Organization

Pakistani American and Winnetka, Illinois teenager Sonia Shah traveled and studied around the world with her mom, Iram. Sonia would see, up close, the despair and hopelessness some girls face in the developing world. 

She started the Kulsoom Foundation for Girls to build a school for girls in Pakistan, because she wanted girls to have the future that her mother provided for her. But before the school was completed, Sonia tragically died in a 2012 auto accident at age 18. 

Since then, Iram has carried on her daughter’s work, renamed as the Sonia Shah Organization. Iram says that Sonia has more influenced her life in death than she ever did in life. We first spoke with Iram in 2013. 

For today’s Global Activism, she’ll update us on the school and how it was rebuilt after a 2014 bombing.