Laptops covered the tables as founders leaned over business models, challenged one another’s assumptions and practiced explaining the problems their ventures aimed to solve. By the end of the week, those conversations had spilled beyond the classroom — over lunch, ice cream and visits to restaurants connected to participants’ communities.

Three years ago, Zohra Obaidy sat alone at her laptop late at night, typing symptoms into Google. She felt tired in a way that sleep could not fix. In Afghanistan, she had been energetic. She was the kind of person who asked the questions that no one else would, and she was the person who made space for voices others ignored. But in America, she stopped asking questions, and the days flattened into sameness.

This spring, 25 Afghan women graduated from universities across the United States through the Qatar Scholarship for Afghans Project (QSAP), representing 67% of the program’s graduating class. Their achievement came as women and girls in Afghanistan continued to face severe restrictions on education. More than 2.2 million Afghan girls remain barred from studying beyond sixth grade and prohibited from attending universities.

When Abed arrived at the University of Maine (UMaine) from Nangarhar, Afghanistan, he found himself far from the close-knit communities he had known growing up. In Afghanistan, family, friends and neighbors were deeply connected. In Maine, it took him a while to see a familiar face or meet another Afghan.