About Malala

Malala Yousafzai is a 17 year old Pakistani advocate for female education. She grew up in Swat Valley, Pakistan, a village that was overtaken by the Taliban, a Terrorist group. The Taliban stopped her education at a young age. She started an anonymous blog for BBC to raise awareness for what was going on in her hometown at the age of 11. She was also featured in the documentary, “Class Dismissed” (http://www.nytimes.com/video/world/asia/100000001835296/class-dismissed-malala-yousafzais-story.html) , which showcased life in Swat Valley.

When she was 14, her family started to receive death threats. Malala began to worry about her father, who was also an Anti-Taliban activist. Malala and her family never worried about anyone else beside her father, because they didn’t think the Taliban would ever hurt a child.

On her way back from school on October 9th, 2012, a member of the Taliban entered her bus and asked for her name. All of Malala’s friends looked at her, giving away her location. The man fired, and shot her in the left side of her head, along with two other girls. Malala was flown to Peshawar’s military hospital, and then flown to Birmingham, England for further treatment.

Malala made a full recovery. She still lives in Birmingham, England, because the Taliban still view her and her family as a target. Since then, she has created the MalalaFund, (http://www.malala.org/) a campaign to promote female education. Malala has been nominated twice for the Nobel Peace Prize, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOqIotJrFVM and won it 2014, along with Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian man who is an advocate and activist for trafficking. She has a new documentary coming out called He Named Me Malala.(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vE5gSHJkusU). It comes out on October 2nd in the U.S.

I heard about Malala when I was in 6th grade, when she was shot. I was, of course, shocked. I thought, How could the Taliban shoot a teenage girl? How could they shoot a child?, but my interest didn’t peak until a year later. When I was in 7th grade, I went to Target to pick up a book that I had been waiting for anxiously, for months. When I got to the ‘New Books’ selection, I grabbed the book that I had been waiting for. But, I also saw Malala’s book, I Am Malala. I had remembered who she was, and decided that it wouldn’t hurt to know more about her. So, I picked up the book and had my mom buy it for me. When I read the book, I was absolutely inspired. The story reminded me that Malala wasn’t some sort of superhuman who was supposed to save the world. She was a normal teenage girl who went through things that she should not have. And even then, she is making the best of what she went through.

At the same time, I had a class that was based off of ‘project based learning’. I decided that for my project, I would help out Malala somehow. When I pitched the idea to my teacher and students, I was shocked to see that a lot of my peers had no idea who she was. That strengthened my resolve. I began to make jewelry with one of my friends Clara, so that we could sell them to donate to the MalalaFund. Soon enough, my classmates saw the documentary “Class Dismissed” and began to pitch in by making duct tape wallets, and silly band bracelets. After we had enough to sell, we began selling during lunch time. After a week of selling, we had earned more money than expected, and donated it to the MalalaFund. The sale not only helped Malala by funding her goal, it taught my peers who Malala is and what she did that was so inspiring.

v