Redefining Opportunity for Women in Afghanistan and Pakistan with Marina Legree of Ascend Athletics

Marina Legree has an educational background in international affairs and public policy and has spent over two decades living around the world and working with international aid agencies.

 

In 2015, she founded the nonprofit Ascend Athletics, which redefines opportunity for women in Afghanistan and Pakistan through mountaineering based leadership training and community service.

 

We talk about:

 

• Marina being assigned to work in Afghanistan starting in 2005 and the country becoming a home for her
• A crash course in modern politics of Afghanistan and the 2021 Taliban offensive
• The assumptions people made about an American woman in her 20’s living in Afghanistan (including people in the US military thinking that she was a spy)
• Language to examine in politics: “third world,” “expat” vs. “immigrant”, and Afghans aren’t Arabs
• Living with restrictions on women’s movement and outdoor time, and how that led Marina to start Ascend Athletics
• Working within the parameters of local culture and religion to encourage girls in the mountains
• Resettling 134 Afghans around the world after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in 2021 (which was antithetical to Ascend’s mission but an ask of the girls in the program)
• Feeling more unsafe living in DC or working with the US Army than after the Taliban gained power in Afghanistan 
• Living in Maine and having a family while leading international work
• Why the world needs more women in government and international leadership

 

PSST! If you like this episode, you’ll love Why Erika Vikander is Fighting for Gender Equality in Freeride Snowboarding and Women’s Sports and How Living Seasonally and Wild Entrepreneurship Led Tamara Jacobi to Run a Mexican Jungle Eco Lodge

 

Connect with Marina and Ascend Athletics:

• https://ascendathletics.org/
• https://www.instagram.com/ascendathleticsngo

 

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Shout-Outs:

-Music: The King of Sandwich Island by Shut-ins

-Thank you to The Ruins, the best wedding venue in Oregon, for supporting the show.