Yahoo Web Search

Search results

  1. Malala Yousafzai, 24 January 2009 BBC blog entry In February 2009, girls' schools were still closed. In solidarity, private schools for boys had decided not to open until 9 February, and notices appeared saying so. On 7 February, Yousafzai and her brother returned to their hometown of Mingora, where the streets were deserted, and there was an "eerie silence". She wrote in her blog: "We ...

  2. Learn how Malala Yousafzai survived a Taliban attack and became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner for her fight for girls' education. Discover how she founded Malala Fund and supports local educators and activists around the world.

    • Malala Yousafzai1
    • Malala Yousafzai2
    • Malala Yousafzai3
    • Malala Yousafzai4
    • Overview
    • Childhood and early activism
    • Shooting and Nobel Peace Prize

    Malala Yousafzai initially became famous for her childhood activism against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP’s) restrictions on education for girls. She appeared on television and wrote a blog for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). Her fame soared after a gunman shot her in the head in 2012, when she was 15 years old, and she survived.

    What was Malala Yousafzai’s childhood like?

    After her school was closed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Malala Yousafzai and her family fled the region. In Peshawar at age 11 she gave her first speech on the school closings and began making press appearances. In 2012 at age 15 she was shot in the head and survived, bolstering her fame globally.

    What were Malala Yousafzai’s accomplishments?

    For her work in drawing global attention to the threat to girls’ education in Pakistan, in 2014 at age 17 Malala Yousafzai became the youngest Nobel Prize laureate up to that time. She also won other accolades, and several funds and education initiatives were established in her honour.

    How was Malala Yousafzai educated?

    The 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.

    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).

    Special offer for students! Check out our special academic rate and excel this spring semester!

    Learn More

    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.

    Yousafzai recovered, staying with her family in Birmingham, where she returned to her studies and to activism. For the first time since being shot, she made a public appearance on July 12, 2013, her 16th birthday, and addressed an audience of 500 at the United Nations in New York City. Among her many awards, in 2013 Yousafzai won the United Nations Human Rights Prize, awarded every five years. She was named one of Time magazine’s most influential people in 2013 and appeared on one of the seven covers that were printed for that issue. With Christina Lamb (foreign correspondent for The Sunday Times), Yousafzai coauthored a memoir, 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), which was 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 striving for people’s freedom throughout the world. Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013 but passed over that year, Yousafzai in 2014 won the prize, becoming the youngest Nobel laureate.

    After winning the Nobel Prize, Yousafzai continued to attend school in England—she graduated from the University of Oxford in 2020—while using her enhanced public profile to bring attention to human rights issues around the world. In July 2015, with support from the Malala Fund, she opened a girls’ school in Lebanon for refugees from the Syrian Civil War. She discussed her work with refugees as well as her own displacement in We Are Displaced (2019).

    Her life, before and after the attack she endured, was examined in the documentary He Named Me Malala (2015). The title referenced the fact that Yousafzai had been named for the Afghan heroine Malalai, or Malala, who purportedly led her people to victory against the British in the 1880 Battle of Maiwand.

  3. Nov 29, 2023 · Learn about the life and achievements of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girls' education activist who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban at age 15 and became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner in 2014. Find out how she advocated for girls' education, wrote books, produced films, and supported causes such as girls' education and human rights.

  4. 3 hours ago · Hillary Clinton and Malala Yousafzai Toast Their New Broadway Show ... Ms. Yousafzai said it was the musical “Matilda” that helped her adjust to life in the United Kingdom after she moved ...

  5. Learn about the life and achievements of Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her advocacy for girls' education. Discover how she survived a Taliban attack, founded the Malala Fund, and spoke at the United Nations.

  6. Aug 17, 2017 · 17 August 2017. Reuters. Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai wrote an anonymous diary about life under Taliban rule in north-west Pakistan. She was shot in the head by militants for daring to go ...

  1. People also search for