Malala Yousafzai

By: Somya Krishna

Living in suburban America, I have always had access to education as a girl. I have never had to worry about not having access to education because of my environment or my gender. Unfortunately for many people, that is not the case. Malala Yousafzai is one of those people.

Born on July 2, 1997, in Mingora, Pakistan, Malala was an aspiring little girl with a passion to learn. Her father was an education advocate, which fueled her hunger for knowledge.

She did not get to enjoy her childhood for long.

When Malala was 10 years old, a major terrorist group called the Taliban came into the picture. They began to take over the Swat Valley area where she lived, and soon they began to take over much of Pakistan. The Taliban believed that girls should not attend school. Because of that, girls like Malala all over Pakistan were banned from going to school, as well as other things like watching television and even dancing. By the next year, they had destroyed around 400 schools and caused multiple suicide bombings.

Malala’s passion to learn soon led her to oppose the Taliban’s tactics and to take a stand. When she was only 11, she gave her first speech. “How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education?” In 2009, she started an anonymous blog in which she wrote about her experiences as a girl living with the Taliban's rules in effect and questioned their tactics. “I am afraid”, she wrote as she experienced war in her own hometown.

From there, she only continued to fight for education. She took advantage of her access to the media to stand up for her cause. Her activism became known more and more, and soon in 2011, she was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Prize and awarded the Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize.

As expected, not everyone supported her movement. What was not expected was the Taliban to shoot her when she was 15 years old.

She was on the bus with her friends when the Taliban stopped the bus, asked for her name, and shot her. She then had to be taken to an intensive care unit and be placed into a medically induced coma because of her severe injuries. But she survived. After her shooting, she became recognized worldwide and spoke at the United Nations on her 16th birthday. That same year, she published her first book called “I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban” and was awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. In 2014, she founded the Malala fund with her father and continued her activism in many places like Nigeria, Jordan, and Kenya.

At age 17, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, being the youngest person to do so. She currently lives in Birmingham, continuing to do work for the Malala fund.

Malala changed the lives of so many girls and has inspired so many people to fight for what they believe in and make change. If Malala can accomplish all of this at such a young age, so can you!