Shannon Galpin supported the first generation of Afghanistan’s women cyclists who dared challenge the gender barrier that prevented women from riding bikes. These women defied their families, their communities, and their country just by riding bikes and one-by-one they changed their culture. By the time the Taliban arrived, women were racing bikes for the first time in Afghanistan’s history. Then they fled. Now they are scattered across the globe in eight different countries and many still remain in Afghanistan and Pakistan, hiding and waiting. Shannon will share the stories, text messages, and photos, that go behind the media headlines of how she helped evacuate these women to safety along with a informally created, digitally connected, constellation of volunteers that navigated an endlessly complex barricade to keep Afghans from leaving Afghanistan.
National Geographic Adventurer and human rights activist, Shannon Galpin, was the first person to mountain bike in Afghanistan in 2009. She supported the first generation of Afghanistan’s women cyclists who dared challenge the gender barrier that prevented women from riding bikes. In one decade, women’s cycling grew from a handful of women in Kabul to hundreds across the country racing and training on multiple teams and internationally. Then the Taliban returned. Shannon has spent the past 14 months evacuating these cyclists and their family members, the majority have been resettled across Europe. She is still safeguarding a group in Pakistan and many are still in hiding in Afghanistan.
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In November 2012, Shannon Galpin was riding her single-speed mountain bike through the hills outside Kabul. It was her 11th visit to Afghanistan, and she had grown accustomed to the sight of camel caravans, abandoned Soviet tanks and soldiers sweeping the desert for land mines.
As U.S. and NATO forces made plans to wind down their 11-year-long campaign in Afghanistan, mountain biker and activist Shannon Galpin was ramping up efforts to bring attention to women’s rights in this war-torn nation. Where many foreigners saw only despair and chaos, Galpin and a group of photographers saw beauty. The pain of war, peaceful moments, laughter, and natural beauty—these images defined the modern Afghanistan.
