Malala Yousafzai A Heroic Girl That Fights For All Girls Education

Malala Yousafzai

An extraordinary activist girl for female education and the youngest-ever Nobelist. 

Malala Malala was born on 12 July 1997 and currently she is 17 years old. Malala is known for her support for human rights and for education in women in Swat Valley the place where she used to live in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa of northwest Pakistan. In Swat Valley where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school Malala's support transformed into an international movement.

At the beginning of 2009, when she was 11–12, Malala wrote a blog under a pseudonym for the BBC in which she was describing her life under Taliban possession and her views on improving the education for girls in the Swat Valley. The next summer after this, a journalist Adam B. Ellick made a New York Times documentary about her life.

Malala started gaining fame by giving interviews in print and on television, and also by her nomination for the International Children's Peace Prize by South African activist Desmond Tutu.

On the afternoon of 9 October 2012, Malala was riding on a school bus in the northwest Pakistani district of Swat. Suddenly a gunman boarded in and asked for her by name, then pointed a pistol at her and fired three shots. One of the bullets hit the left side of Malala's forehead, went straight under her skin through the length of her face, and then went into her shoulder. In the following days after the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition. Despite that later her condition improved enough for her to be sent on 15 October to the United Kingdom for further treatment to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, for intensive rehabilitation.

Malala had woken of her coma in 17 October 2012. She was responding well to the doctors’ treatment, and was said to have a good chance of fully recovering without any brain damage. On 3 January 2013, Malala was discharged from the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham in order to continue her rehabilitation at her family's temporary home in the West Midlands. She had a five-hour operation on 2 February to reconstruct her skull and restore her hearing, and was reported in stable condition.

I Am Malala, is Malala Yousafzai's book, it is co-written with journalist Christina Lamb. The book begins on Malala's drive home from school on the day she was shot in the head. "Who is Malala?" asked the young gunman who stopped the school van. All the girls remained silent and none of them answered. But everyone knew who Malala was. Ten years old when the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan came to the Swat Valley, 11 years old by the time she had established herself as an international supporter for girls' education in Pakistan, Malala was targeted by the Taliban for "spreading secularism".

One famous quote from the book is: 'I wasn't sad, I wasn't scared, I just thought: it doesn't matter what I look like, I was alive, I was thankful.'

On 12 July 2013, on Yousafzai's 16th birthday, she spoke at the UN to speak for worldwide access to education. The UN dubbed the event "Malala Day". This was her first public speech ever since the attack, and thus this lead to the first ever Youth Takeover of the UN, with an audience of over 500 young education supporters from around the world.

“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’s words had such a huge impact in the audience and that resulted in several standing ovations. Ban Ki-moon, who also spoke at the session, described her as "our hero". Apart from this Malala also presented the chamber with "The Education We Want", a Youth Resolution of education demands written by Youth for Youth, in a process co-ordinated by the UN Global Education First Youth Advocacy Group, telling her audience:

 

Sources:

·       http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai#Assassination_attempt

·       http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/y/malala_yousafzai/index.html

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/30/malala-yousafzai-fatima-bhutto-review