“One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”
Malala was born on July 12, 1997, in Mingora, the largest city in the Swat Valley, a mountainous and tribal region in northwest Pakistan and near the border with Afghanistan. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the country has more than five million children between the ages of 5 and 11 who do not attend school, with two out of three children being girls. Pakistan ranks third worst in the world index for gender equality in the education system. In the province where Malala lived, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the illiteracy rate among women is over 60%.
Malala’s father, Zia-ud-Din Yousafzai, has always been an advocate of education and has conveyed this passion to his daughter. According to friends, the educator and owner of a mixed high school used to say that if he were murdered for educating children, “there would be no better way to die.”
Father and daughter have a special relationship. It was with her that Yousafzai was discussing politics, while the other two children went to sleep. The fight to educate the girl and to maintain her school began in 2007, when the Tehrik-i-Taliban (Pakistani arm of the Taliban) infiltrated in Mingora and, from then on, destroyed more than 400 schools, banished the women of the social life, banning them access to education, and terrorized the population with public executions and threats transmitted by clandestine radio.
Malala changed her way to school every day, hid the books under her clothes and no longer wore her uniform not to draw attention. In 2009, encouraged by her father, she started writing the blog “Diary of a Pakistani girl” for the BBC Urdu, under the pseudonym Gul Makai, about the difficulties she faced in the Swat Valley under the aegis of the Taliban. Her real identity became known through the documentary produced by “The New York Times” in the same year, “Class Dismissed.”
By then, Malala had already become an icon for the region’s girls for defending female education and openly criticizing the Taliban, something that even Pakistani politicians did not do for fear. Malala won prizes and got the authorities to improve the region’s schools. In December 2011, she received from the Prime Minister Yousaf Paza Gilano the National Peace Prize – renamed with her name, as well as the school where she studied. At the ceremony, she revealed the desire to form a political party to defend education.
In October 2012, armed men entered the school bus which she was traveling in and asked for Malala. When a classmate pointed at her, an armed man shot her in the head and the bullet went through her neck and settled on her shoulder. The shots also hurt other girls who were on the bus. Malala was taken to England, where she underwent surgery to rebuild the skull and restore hearing at Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
She was recovered and now lives with her family in Birmingham, where she studied at a school for girls only and her father was already employed by the Pakistani consulate for the following three years.
Since the attack, Malala was honored with several awards and she is the youngest person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
During the Women in the World Summit in April 2013, in a video message sent from England, Malala announced the first donation of $ 45,000 to the fund created in her honor and hosted by the NGO Vital Choices, aimed at building a school for 40 girls from five to twelve years in the Swat Valley.
“Announcing the first grant of the Malala Fund is the happiest moment in my life. I invite all of you to support the Malala Fund and let us turn the education of 40 girls into 40 million girls.” she said.
The sum was raised with the help of Angelina Jolie, Women in the World Foundation and Vital Voices, who said that for security reasons, would not reveal the region where the project will be carried out or the name of the responsible organization.
On July 12, 2013, Malala made the first public speech since the attack, during the meeting of young leaders at the UN General Assembly in New York. The date coincided with her 16th birthday and was made official by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as the “Malala Day” in tribute to her efforts to ensure education for all. The young Pakistani also gave Ban Ki-moon a petition with four million signatures calling for the UN to materialize the goal of a free and universal education for all children by 2015, at a time when nearly 57 million children throughout the world remain without access to basic education.
