Afghan girls, who were twice denied US visa, win entrepreneurship challenge in Europe

The development comes nearly four months after they clinched a silver medal for “courageous achievement” at the First Global Challenge competition in the US.

The Afghanistan robotics team, comprising of six girls from Herat region, Thursday added another feather in their cap after they won the entrepreneur challenge in the biggest Robotics Festival in Estonia. The development comes nearly four months after they clinched a silver medal for “courageous achievement” at the First Global Challenge competition in the US.

Theirs was the same team that was denied visas twice in the United States of America, which raised an international debate over Donald Trump’s hardening stance on border security. Eventually, Trump had intervened to sidestep the decision. Even though Afghanistan is not included in Trump’s travel ban on Muslim-dominated nations, critics said that the denial of visa to Afghanistan girls is a result of his policies. Also Read: Afghan girls, who were earlier denied US visas, win silver medal at Robotics competition

The Afghanistan Embassy in London congratulated the team on their victory.

<p “width=420″ lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&gt;Congratulations to our Afghan Girls Robotics Team for winning the entrepreneur challenge in the biggest Robotics Festival in Europe in Estonia. #ProudAfghans #Robotex17 #AfgDigital pic.twitter.com/nIM6GudIul— AfghanEmbassyLondon (@Afghan_Emb_LON) November 26, 2017

Back in July, the girls, who had travelled around 500 miles over Taliban-controlled territory to US embassy in Kabul, were honoured for displaying “a can-do attitude throughout the challenge, even under difficult circumstances, or when things do not go as planned.” In a press statement, US state department official Dina Powell described the girls as the “future leaders of Afghanistan”.