Afghans Empowered chats with Gulmakai Saleh, a children’s book author, educator, and mentor, based in the USA. Born in Kandahar, and raised in the US, Gulmakai draws from her own unique stories of upbringing as inspiration for her work as an author. In her books, she portrays stories of children that address a wide variety of themes and topics such as fairness, equality, diversity, tolerance, and respect. She takes her message further through her wide variety of educational mentorship courses that she offers. Through these courses, Gulmakai teaches the core messages of her books to both adults and children, in order to facilitate a space for conversations about the kinds of values children can learn through leadership and example. Her latest book, “The Broken Smile” is currently out now! Gulmakai has teamed up with a plethora of resources for her awareness initiative on the condition of cleft lip and palate. “The Broken Smile” is inspired by her own personal life, and seeks to bring power to the act of smiling, an action that so many of us sometimes forget to do. She is currently working on a project to make her books accessible in Dari and Pashto for children in Afghanistan. Tune in as we discuss additional projects that Gulmakai is working on, and learn about ways to support her work!

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