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Malala Yousafzai - A Born Warrior

Updated: Oct 4, 2020

Malala a born warrior, fighting for the right and access to education for girls, around the globe.

Malala Yousafzai, the youngest warrior, was born on July 12, 1997, in Mingora, located in Pakistan's Swat valley. From an early age, this Pakistani activist has been speaking out publicly against the prohibition on girls' education imposed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. She was recognized globally after she survived an assassination attack of Tahreek E Taliban, Pakistan. In 2014, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace to recognize their efforts on behalf of children's rights.

Malala has recently graduated from Oxford ! Iski ab shadi kra do

Malala ki Kahani

Malala is the daughter of an outspoken social activist and educator, Yousafzai was an excellent student. Her father was mostly the man who set up and administered the school she attended, Khushal Girls High School and College in the city of Mingora, to offer a sense of protection and motivation for her. In 2007 the scenic Swat valley, a holiday destination for most Pakistanis, was overrun by the TTP. Maulana Fazlullah, the TTP leader, began enforcing strict Islamic law, destroying or closing down girls' schools, outlawing women from any active role in society, and conducting suicide bombings in the community and across the country. Yousafzai and his family fled the region for refuge, and eventually return home when the peace was restored.

Malala- A kid with a pencil fighting against the guns. In the end, the pen won! On September 1, 2008, when Malala was just an 11 years old kid, her father led her to Peshawar Press Club in Peshawar to protest the school closings, and that is when she gave her first speech, a daring effort to put some sense into the minds of the extremists.


"How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education?"


This speech went viral throughout Pakistan. By the end of 2008, TTP announced that all girls' schools in Swat would be closed from January 15, 2009.

That is when BBC approached Malala's father searching for someone who might share their experience about life under the TTP rule. Under the alias Gul Makai, Malala, the brave young warrior, began writing regular entries for BBC Urdu about her daily life. She wrote around thirty-five entries during a short span of just three months. Meanwhile, the TTP did the most horrific thing, they shut down all-girls' schools in Swat and destroyed hundreds of more than 100 of them.


In February 2009, Malala made her first television appearance when she was interviewed by Hamid Mir_a Pakistani journalist. In late February, the TTP, in response to an escalating resentment throughout Pakistan, agreed to a cease-fire, lifted the restraint against girls, and allowed them to attend school on one stipulation that they wear burkas. However, disorder resurged only a few months later, in May, and the Malala's family was ordered to seek refuge outside of Swat. In early 2009 Adam Ellick, a reporter for The New York Times, worked on a documentary, Class Dismissed, a 13-minute piece about the school shutdown. That is when he met and worked with Malala Yousafzai. Ellick made a second film titled A Schoolgirl's Odyssey with her. Both the films were posted by The New York Times on their Web site in 2009. That summer, she also got the opportunity to meet with the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. All she asked him to do was help her to protect girls' education in Pakistan.

With Malala's renewing television impressions and coverage in the local and international media, it had become evident by December 2009 that she was writing as a young blogger for the BBC. Once her identity was revealed, she became a sensation for her activism. In October 2011, she was nominated by human rights activist Desmond Tutu for the International Children's Peace Prize.


Shooting And Nobel Peace Prize

It was October 9, a fine sunny day in the swat valley; Malala was studying and enjoying school with her friends; later that day, a TTP gunman shot her in the head while she was on her way to the home from school. So-called warriors like Fazlullah and TTP, who were threatened by a twelve-year-old, took responsibility for the attempt on her life.

Luckily, she survived the attack and was flown from Peshawar to Birmingham, England, where she had a long, complicated surgery. The incident elicited protests. For the first time, her cause was taken up worldwide, including by the UN special envoy for global education, Gordon Brown, who led the petition that called for all children worldwide to be back in school by 2015. The petition led to the ratification of Pakistan's first Right to Education Bill. In December 2012, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari announced a $10 million education fund in Malala Yousafzai's honour. At about the same time, the Malala Fund was established by the Vital Voices Global Partnership to promote education for all girls around the world.


Malala recovered, staying with her family in Birmingham, where she got back to her studies and activism. July 12, 2013, her 16th birthday, was the first public appearance since being shot; she addressed an audience of 500 at the United Nations in New York City. Among her many honours, in 2013, Yousafzai won the United Nations Human Rights Prize, awarded every five years.

She was identified as one of Time magazine's most influential people in 2013 and appeared on one of the seven covers printed for that issue. With Christina Lamb (foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times), Yousafzai coauthored a biography, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban (2013). She also wrote the picture book Malala's Magic Pencil (2017), based on her childhood. In 2014 she became the youngest person to win the Liberty Medal, awarded by the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia to public figures trying for people's sovereignty throughout the world. She was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 but passed over that year, Yousafzai in 2014 won the prize, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate. The same year Abdul Sattar Edhi was nominated for Nobel Prize.


After becoming a Nobel laureate, Yousafzai went to Oxford to complete her education. In July 2015, Malala Fund sponsored a school that she opened for girls' education for refugees from the Syrian Civil War in Lebanon. She shared her passion and motivation with refugees and you can also learn about her own displacement in We Are Displaced (2019).


Her life, under TTP, before the attack, and after the attack, was examined in the documentary He Named Me Malala (2015). The title referenced that Malala was named after the Afghan heroine Malalai or Malala. A warrior who led her people to victory against the British in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand.

Education of girls is the backbone of a successful society. We need more activists like Malala not only in Pakistan but around the globe, to promote, facilitate, advocate and inspire that girls have every right to education and nobody can deny that to her.


What do you think? Did Malala really deserve the Nobel prize and what should she do next.

If you are a supporter of the education of girl and do contribute to Malala fund. Contribution, no matter, how small, has an impact.



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