Malala Yousafzai, (born July 12, 1997, Mingora, Swat valley, Pakistan), Pakistani activist who, while a teenager, spoke out publicly against the prohibition on the education of girls that was imposed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP; sometimes called Pakistani Taliban). She gained global attention when she survived an assassination attempt at age 15. In 2014 Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in recognition of their efforts on behalf of children’s rights.
Malala Yousafzai
Born: July 12, 1997 (age 24) Pakistan
Awards And Honors: Nobel Prize (2014)
I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World (Young Readers Edition)by Malala Yousafzai
Childhood and early activism
daughter of an outspoken social activist and educator, Yousafzai was an excellent student. Her father—who established and administered the school she attended, Khushal Girls High School and College in the city of Mingora—encouraged her to follow in his path. In 2007 the Swat valley, once a vacation destination, was invaded by the TTP. Led by Maulana Fazlullah, the TTP began imposing strict Islamic law, destroying or shutting down girls’ schools, banning women from any active role in society, and carrying out suicide bombings. Yousafzai and her family fled the region for their safety, but they returned when tensions and violence eased.
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On September 1, 2008, when Yousafzai was 11 years old, her father took her to a local press club in Peshawar to protest the school closings, and she gave her first speech—“How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education?” Her speech was publicized throughout Pakistan. Toward the end of 2008, the TTP announced that all girls’ schools in Swat would be shut down on January 15, 2009. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) approached Yousafzai’s father in search of someone who might blog for them about what it was like to live under TTP rule. Under the name Gul Makai, Yousafzai began writing regular entries for BBC Urdu about her daily life. She wrote from January through the beginning of March of that year 35 entries that were also translated into English. Meanwhile, the TTP shut down all girls’ schools in Swat and blew up more than 100 of them.
In February 2009 Yousafzai made her first television appearance, when she was interviewed by Pakistani journalist and talk show host Hamid Mir on the Pakistan current events show Capital Talk. In late February the TTP, responding to an increasing backlash throughout Pakistan, agreed to a cease-fire, lifted the restriction against girls, and allowed them to attend school on the condition that they wear burkas. However, violence resurged only a few months later, in May, and the Yousafzai family was forced to seek refuge outside of Swat until the Pakistani army was able to push the TTP out. In early 2009 The New York Times reporter Adam Ellick worked with Yousafzai to make a documentary, Class Dismissed, a 13-minute piece about the school shutdown. Ellick made a second film with her, titled A Schoolgirl’s Odyssey. The New York Times posted both films on their Web site in 2009. That summer she met with the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, and asked him to help with her effort to protect the education of girls in Pakistan.
With Yousafzai’s continuing television appearances and coverage in the local and international media, it had become apparent by December 2009 that she was the BBC’s young blogger. Once her identity was known, she began to receive widespread recognition for her activism. In October 2011 she was nominated by human rights activist Desmond Tutu for the International Children’s Peace Prize. In December of that year she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize (later renamed the National Malala Peace Prize).
Shooting and Nobel Peace Prize
On October 9, 2012, Yousafzai was shot in the head by a TTP gunman while she was en route home from school. Fazlullah and the TTP took responsibility for the attempt on her life. She survived the attack and was flown from Peshawar to Birmingham, England, for surgery. The incident elicited protests, and her cause was taken up around the world, including by the UN special envoy for global education, Gordon Brown, who introduced a petition that called for all children around the world to be back in school by 2015. That petition led to the ratification of Pakistan’s first Right to Education bill. In December 2012 Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari announced the launch of a $10 million education fund in Yousafzai’s honour. About the same time, the Malala Fund was established by the Vital Voices Global Partnership to support education for all girls around the world.
This is the struggle of Malala for education in the world.