Malala, an activist for female education, was born on July 12, 1997 in Mingora, Swat, Pakistan. Her family is Sunni Muslim of Pashtun ethnicity; Malala was named after a Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun poet and female warrior from southern Afghanistan, who rallied local fighters against the British troops at the 1880 Battle of Maiwand. Malala was born to Ziauddin and Tor, and has two younger brothers, Khushal and Atal. She was educated primarily by her father, Ziauddin, who was also an education activist, private school owner and teacher, and poet.
During her childhood, the Taliban occupied Swat, a district in Pakistan, and at one point, prohibited girls from going to school and receiving an education. In 2008, at just 11 years old, Malala spoke at the Peshawar Press Club in the capitol city. She is quoted by journalists covering the conference as saying "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" In 2009, Malala started at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting's Open Minds Pakistan youth program, where she worked as a trainee and later a peer educator, working in schools across her region to help her young peers engage in constructive discussion on social issues through journalism, public debate, and dialogue.
Simultaneously, in 2008, Malala was asked to be an anonymous blogger through BBC’s Urdu, and report about the Taliban’s occupation and her experiences as a young woman in school under those circumstances. Even though the offer was dangerous, her father, who had been helping the BBC find a volunteer, then offered the position to Malala, although she was four years younger than the other girls they’d sought after. She was only in 7th grade at the time. BBC accepted, as did Malala, and she began publishing blog posts under a pseudonym. By 2009, the Taliban had destroyed most of the girls’ schools, and had threatened more destruction and terror; Malala’s school was shut down, and by January 15, 2009, all girls were banned from attending school.
Malala served as the chair of the District Child Assembly of the Khpal Kor Foundation from 2009 to 2010. In October 2011, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a South African activist, nominated her for the International Children's Peace Prize of the Dutch international children's advocacy group KidsRights Foundation. She was the first Pakistani girl to be nominated for the award. The announcement said, "Malala dared to stand up for herself and other girls and used national and international media to let the world know girls should also have the right to go to school." However, she didn't win. But this was only the beginning…
On December 19, 2011, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani awarded her the National Peace Award for Youth. By 2012, she was organizing the Malala Education Foundation, which would help poor girls go to school and receive an education. Malala was gaining recognition and support. Because of this, in the summer of 2012, the leaders of the Taliban unanimously voted that Malala needed to be killed in order to regain control.
On October 9, 2012, a Taliban gunman entered her bus on her way home from school and shot Malala in the head. The bullet traveled from near her left eye, through her neck, and into her shoulder near her spinal cord. After receiving emergency surgery to immediately reduce the swelling in the left side of her brain, the doctors removed the bullet after 5 intensive hours. Malala was eventually transported to England, where she received further treatment.
Mala writes about this experience, saying “In October 2012, on my way home from school, a masked gunman boarded my school bus and asked, “Who is Malala?” He shot me on the left side of my head. I woke up 10 days later in a hospital in Birmingham, England. The doctors and nurses told me about the attack — and that people around the world were praying for my recovery.”
On October 17, 2012 she woke up from her coma and continued to make a miraculous recovery. On November 11, she underwent an 8 hour surgery to repair her facial nerves.
On 15 October 2012, UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown, the former British Prime Minister, visited Yousafzai while she was in the hospital, and launched a petition in her name and "in support of what Malala fought for". Using the slogan "I am Malala", the petition's main demand was that there be no child left out of school by 2015, with the hope that "girls like Malala everywhere will soon be going to school". Brown said he would hand the petition to President Zardari in Islamabad in November.
The petition contains three demands:
We call on Pakistan to agree to a plan to deliver education for every child.
We call on all countries to outlaw discrimination against girls.
We call on international organizations to ensure the world's 61 million out-of-school children are in education by the end of 2015.
The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born ... I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all terrorists and extremists… Malala day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.
On October 10, 2014, Malala was announced as the co-recipient of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education. Having received the prize at the age of 17, she is the youngest Nobel laureate.
Malala writes: "It was then I knew I had a choice: I could live a quiet life or I could make the most of this new life I had been given. I determined to continue my fight until every girl could go to school. With my father, who has always been my ally and inspiration, I established Malala Fund, a charity dedicated to giving every girl an opportunity to achieve a future she chooses."
On July 12, 2015, her 18th birthday, Malala opened a school in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, near the Syrian border, for Syrian refugees. The school, funded by the non-profit Malala Fund, offers education and training to girls aged 14 to 18 years. She then called on world leaders to invest in "books, not bullets".
As of 2018, Malala is now studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. She writes: “Every day I fight to ensure all girls receive 12 years of free, safe, quality education. I travel to many countries to meet girls fighting poverty, wars, child marriage and gender discrimination to go to school. Malala Fund is working so that their stories, like mine, can be heard around the world. We invest in developing country educators and activists, like my father, through Malala Fund’s Gulmakai Network. And we hold leaders accountable for their promises to girls. With more than 130 million girls out of school today, there is more work to be done. I hope you will join my fight for education and equality. Together, we can create a world where all girls can learn and lead.”
Malala has been an incredible inspiration to me. She has fought and survived more than I can even imagine. She has lived through war, lived through an assassination attempt, all before she was 15 years old. And she didn’t let her experiences break her. In 2013, she wrote her memoir called “I Am Malala”, which was so beautiful and heart shattering, but so vital to our day and age. Malala’s courage and bravery seeps through every word, every page, and drastically impacted me more than anything had in a long time. Her next book, titled We Are Displaced: True Stories of Refugee Lives, comes out on Sept. 4th, 2018, and I CANNOT WAIT TO READ IT! Seriously, I’m not doing anything until I finish that book!
You can learn more about the Malala Fund by following this link https://www.malala.org/ where you can also donate to the non-profit, and feel good about helping an organization that funds safe, quality, and free secondary education for girls in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, Syria, Brazil, and India.
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