Photo: Getty Images North America
In 2010, guitar teacher Lanny Cordola founded a non-profit organization called Miraculous Love Kids with the goal of teaching guitar to kids in war-torn areas. Five years later, he started a female-focused program called Girl WIth a Guitar in Kabul, Afghanistan, which has taught nearly 200 students and collaborated with a number of high-profile artists, including Tom Morello.
Since the Taliban took control of the city, those girls are in danger because of their ties to Western ideals, and Morello is doing whatever he can to help save them. On Monday (August 30), he shared an open letter with Billboard.
“I’m writing on behalf of some very special girls in Afghanistan who are in grave danger,” Morello wrote. “[Girl With a Guitar] takes in street orphans and other girls that have endured significant trauma and uses music as a rehabilitation tool and means of working through their problems, their histories, and their hopes. I’ve had the honor of collaborating with these wonderful kids. Since the Taliban takeover their school has been destroyed and the girls are in hiding. They are at extreme risk because they are widely known to have performed Western music and have been educated by a male American teacher. Anything you could do to help save their lives would be much appreciated.”
Cordola is currently in Pakistan working to get his students out, with whom he has daily contact. According to Billboard, he is trying to get 12 girls, their families and his driver out of the country “because their lives are in peril.” After a failed mission to rescue them by plane, he's considering other options.
“We’re trying to investigate if getting them to the Pakistan border is a possibility,” he said. “We’ve been talking to a lot of different people, rescue organizations. We need to get them out of Afghanistan to start a new life somewhere.”
Cordola can be reached at lcordola19@gmail.com. Find out how you can support the students here.