He and his team traveled to Afghanistan in 2002 to search for the girl. They hoped to find her, but knew unfortunately there was a possibility she was already dead. The team traveled first to the village, Nasir Bagh, where McCurry took the famous photograph. From then on, the fate of finding the girl was dependent on word of mouth from locals. The team distributed hundreds of photos to nearby villages in hopes that they would find someone who recognized her.
After countless hours of searching, the team needed to be 100% sure that any woman people claimed was "the Afghan Girl" really was her. Tech experts on the team used age-predicting software on the famous photo and made note of distinguishing physical features such as iris markings and birth marks. This prevented false leads when some women lied and said they were the girl.
When the "the Afghan Girl" was finally found, she had to travel three days to meet McCurry. It was then that he photographed her a second time and heard her story of hardships in the seventeen years that had passed.
This indefatigable team effort is inspiring because they achieved the seemingly impossible task of locating the "Afghan Girl". The rewards from this search stretched beyond the second photograph: interest in the first photograph lead to global interest in her life and the search to find her. More global awareness about Afghanistan and the hardships refugees went through spread and became more personal when following a single woman. Empathy towards the "Afghan Girl" also inspired people to raise money for women's schools in Afghanistan.
Two seemingly unrelated people can promote a powerful cause when they are willing to communicate with each other.
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