By: Rukhshana media
Zahra Joya, the founder and editor-in-chief of Rukhshana Media, was among the four recipients of 2022 Goalkeepers Global Goals award.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Joya the 2022 Changemaker award for her work as a journalist who makes sure the stories of Afghan women are reported and told to the world.
“The 2022 Changemaker Award, which was presented by Angelina Jolie, celebrates an individual who has inspired change using personal experience or from a position of leadership,” the Gates Foundation said in a statement.
The three other winners were Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, Radhika Batra, an India based doctor and health activist, and Vanessa Nakate, a climate change activist from Uganda.
All four women received their awards in an event held in New York Tuesday, September 20.
In her acceptance speech, Joya said women are fighting for their most basic rights in Afghanistan.
“It is impossible to explain in words how much Afghan women have lost in just one year,” she said. “We are now fighting for our basic rights. The right to go to school. The right to be allowed to work. The right to wear what we like.”
Joya added that for her and Rukhshana Media the fight has just started.
“I want to tell you from here that we will not surrender to the forces of darkness,” she said. “We should defeat the darkness, and together, I believe we can.”
The U.S. former president, Barack Obama, France president, Emmanuel Macron, and Malala Yousafzai, an education activist from Pakistan, had received this prestigious award in the past.
