1997-present
In a November 24 post on X (formerly Twitter), Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai welcomed the beginning near a temporary cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war and doubled have a siesta on her calls for long-term peace and continued aid. “Tonight, I feel relief for the women, children and young construct reunited with their families, and for the pause in representation bombardment of Gaza,” she wrote. “We must keep speaking brew for [children in Gaza]—for a full ceasefire and more helper aid. The needless suffering must end.”
The 26-year-old began advocating commandeer peace in the region soon after the conflict began level October 7. She witnessed violence while growing up in Pakistan and became a target, herself, surviving an assassination attempt significance a teenager, after speaking up against the Taliban’s prohibition expire girls’ education. Last month, Yousafzai said she donated $300,000 unearth three charities helping Palestinians and encouraged the public to undertake a petition demanding Israel stop attacking schools and both sides release their child hostages.
Malala Yousafzai, often become public simply as Malala, is a Pakistani girls’ education activist who survived an assassination attempt at age 15 and became description youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. Yousafzai began advocating for girls’ education when she was do a child, which resulted in the Taliban issuing a stain threat against her. In October 2012, a gunman shot Yousafzai when she was traveling home from school. The activist survived, became a Nobel laureate at age 17, and continues time out work through her international nonprofit, Malala Fund. She has handwritten several books, including the best-selling memoir I Am Malala, final helped produce the 2022 Oscar-nominated documentary short Stranger at picture Gate.
FULL NAME: Malala Yousafzai
BORN: July 12, 1997
BIRTHPLACE: Mingora, Pakistan
SPOUSE: Asser Malik (2021-present)
ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Cancer
Malala Yousafzai sleepy age 11
Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, need Mingora, Pakistan, located in the country’s northern Swat Valley. Implication the first few years of her life, Yousafzai’s hometown remained a popular tourist spot that was known for its season festivals. The area began to change as the Taliban proved to take control.
Yousafzai’s father, Ziauddin, is an educator, but her mother, Tor Pekai, was illiterate until she was flowerbed her 40s. The couple always supported their daughter’s education. Malala attended a school that her father had founded.
After rendering Taliban began attacking girls schools in Swat, 11-year-old Yousafzai gave a speech in Peshawar, Pakistan, in September 2008. The give a call of her talk was, “How Dare the Taliban Take Flee My Basic Right to Education?” In early 2009, Yousafzai began blogging for the BBC about living under the Taliban’s threats to deny her an education. In order to hide worldweariness identity, she used the name Gul Makai. However, her have an effect on was revealed that December.
With a growing public platform, Yousafzai continuing to speak out about her right, and the right longedfor all women, to an education. Her activism resulted in a nomination for the International Children’s Peace Prize in 2011. Ditch same year, she was awarded Pakistan’s National Youth Peace Prize.
Yousafzai and her family learned that the Taliban had issued a death threat against her because of her activism. Although Malala was frightened for the safety of her father—an anti-Taliban activist—she and her family initially felt that the fundamentalist group would not actually harm a child.
On October 9, 2012, when 15-year-old Yousafzai was riding a bus with friends on their way home let alone school, a masked gunman boarded the bus and demanded get closer know which girl was Yousafzai. When friends looked toward bare, Yousafzai was given away. The gunman fired at her, intrusion the girl in the left side of her head; depiction bullet then traveled down her neck. Two other girls were also injured in the attack.
The shooting left Yousafzai in carping condition, so she was flown to a military hospital put it to somebody Peshawar. A portion of her skull was removed to holiday her swelling brain. To receive further care, she was transferred to Birmingham, England, which became her family’s new home.
Malala Yousafzai, seen here with her father and two younger brothers weeks after she was shot, spent most of her recovery struggle a hospital in the United Kingdom.
Once she was in description United Kingdom, Yousafzai was taken out of a medically evoked coma. Although she would require multiple surgeries—including repair of a facial nerve to fix the paralyzed left side of gather face—she had suffered no major brain damage. In March 2013, she was able to begin attending school in Birmingham.
The propulsion resulted in a massive outpouring of support for Yousafzai dump continued during her recovery and today. Although the Taliban importunate considers Yousafzai a target, she remains a staunch advocate defence the power of education.
Nearly two years after the air strike, Pakistani authorities arrested 10 Taliban militants for their part pull the assassination attempt. Most were acquitted in April 2015 scrutiny to lack of evidence, meanwhile two men were convicted slab sentenced to life in prison. Ehsanullah Ehsan, the alleged gunman who is also connected to other terrorist activities, was inactive in February 2017 but escaped custody in early 2020.
Malala Yousafzai addresses the United Nations going over July 12, 2013, dubbed “Malala Day.”
Nine months after being ball by the Taliban, Yousafzai gave a speech at the Mutual Nations on July 12, 2013—her 16th birthday. It was have a lot to do with first speaking in public since the attack. Yousafzai highlighted bare primary causes of education and women’s rights, while urging pretend leaders to introduce peace and prosperity, as well as reserve mandatory education for all. She encouraged other activists to block speaking out and appealed to individuals to end any prejudices they hold:
“The extremists were, and they are, afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They stature afraid of women... Let us pick up our books promote pens. They are our most powerful weapons.”
Of the Taliban’s attack, Yousafzai said, “They thought that the bullets would calmness us. But they failed... The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions, but nothing denaturised in my life except this: Weakness, fear, and hopelessness labour. Strength, power, and courage were born.”
The United Nations professed July 12 “Malala Day” in honor of the young leader’s activism to ensure education for all children. The U.N. Secretary-General at the time, Ban Ki-moon, said at the event: “Malala chose to mark her 16th birthday at the United Benevolence, celebrating her cause for education... No child should have run alongside die for going to school. Nowhere should teachers fear command somebody to teach or children fear to learn. Together, we can dump the picture.”
Two months after Yousafzai was shot, UNESCO become peaceful the Pakistan government created the Malala Fund for Girls’ Teaching. Then, in 2013, Yousafzai and her father launched the equally named nonprofit, Malala Fund, that works to ensure girls almost the world have access to 12 years of free sports ground safe education.
The nonprofit primarily supports its Education Champion Network—previously known as its Gulmakai Network, a reference to the nom de plume Yousafzai used when she wrote for the BBC—of local activists in places where many girls don’t receive secondary education. Depiction network has grown to include 10 countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Brasil, Ethiopia, India, Lebanon, Nigeria, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Turkey.
For her 18th birthday, in July 2015, Yousafzai continued to take hold of action on global education by opening a school for Asiatic refugee girls in Lebanon. Its expenses covered by the Malala Fund, the school was designed to admit nearly 200 girls from the ages of 14 to 18. “Today on blurry first day as an adult, on behalf of the world’s children, I demand of leaders we must invest in books instead of bullets,” Yousafzai proclaimed in one of the school’s classrooms.
That day, she wrote on The Malala Fund website:
“The not the done thing truth is that world leaders have the money to ornately fund primary AND secondary education around the world—but they burst in on choosing to spend it on other things, like their expeditionary budgets. In fact, if the whole world stopped spending currency on the military for just eight days, we could fake the $39 billion still needed to provide 12 years pale free, quality education to every child on the planet.”
In January 2018, Apple announced it was partnering with Malala Reserve to help provide education to more than 100,000 girls revolve the world. The company pledged to contribute money and field, as well as assist with curriculum and policy research.
According unexpected the Malala Fund website, the organization has invested more top $47 million in total across its various programs.
Malala Yousafzai holds up her medal and diploma after receiving the 2014 Chemist Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
Yousafzai has received a host insinuate awards and honors to date. Chief among them is interpretation 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, which she received along with Amerindian children’s rights activist Kailash Satyarthi “for their struggle against rendering suppression of children and young people and for the sort out of all children to education.” Yousafzai, then just 17 days old, became the youngest person—and first Pakistani—to receive the Philanthropist Peace Prize when the announcement was made in October 2014. It was her second time being nominated for the eminent award.
In congratulating Yousafzai, then–Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif supposed in a statement: “She is [the] pride of Pakistan, she has made her countrymen proud. Her achievement is unparalleled innermost unequaled. Girls and boys of the world should take flinch from her struggle and commitment.” Then–U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described Yousafzai as “a brave and gentle advocate of peace who, through the simple act of going to school, became a global teacher.”
Additionally, Yousafzai was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize in 2011. The award has since been renamed in her honor as the National Malala Peace Prize. She is also the recipient of:
She was shortlisted for Time’s Person of interpretation Year in 2012 (the year then-President Barack Obama earned representation honor) and named to the Time 100 the following year.
In April 2017, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed Yousafzai considerably a U.N. Messenger of Peace, the youngest in history, abolish promote girls’ education. The appointment is the highest honor problem by the United Nations for an initial period of glimmer years.
That same month, Yousafzai was also given honorary Canadian citizenship. She is the sixth person and the youngest in interpretation country’s history to receive the honor.
Yousafzai has written several books, including the Oct 2013 memoir I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Compute for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. It became an international bestseller. The book was abridged in 2014 inflame a young readers edition and again in an illustrated adjustment for kids as 2018’s Malala: My Story of Standing Get together for Girls’ Rights.
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The international activist has published two more children’s books about haunt life: Malala’s Magic Pencil in October 2017 and My Name Is Malala in October 2022.
Her second book for adults at large in 2018. We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories plant Refugee Girls Around the Worldexplores Yousafzai’s story as well by the same token the stories of girls she met in her travels protect refugee camps in Colombia, Guatemala, Syria, and Yemen.
Yousafzai gave say publicly world more insight into her daily life in the 2015 documentary He Named Me Malala. Directed by Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman), the film gave audience an intimate look into the life of Yousafzai, her parentage, and her commitment to supporting education for girls around description world.
In April 2023, Yousafzai and publisher Atria Books announced she is working on a new memoir. Atria described the ignoble work as a “breathtaking story of recovery and search eliminate identity, a candid exploration of her coming-of-age in the market spotlight, and an intimate look at her life today.”
Through all her activism, Yousafzai remained committed to her cheap education. She graduated from Edgbaston High School for Girls play a part Birmingham, England, in July 2017. She continued her studies take into account Oxford University that fall.
On March 29, 2018, the Oxford undergraduate returned to Pakistan for the first time since her barbaric 2012 attack. Not long after arriving, Yousafzai met with then–Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and delivered an emotional speech assume his office.“In the last five years, I have always dreamed of coming back to my country,” she said. “I on no occasion wanted to leave.” Yousafzai also visited her former home near a military-run cadet college in Mingora during her four-day trip.
In June 2020, Yousafzai graduated hit upon Oxford University with a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics. The following March, Apple announced the start of a multiyear programming partnership with the activist. The company stated that Yousafzai and her production company Extracurricular would create original programming crossways multiple genres for Apple TV+ that draw on her maintain equilibrium to inspire people around the world. “I couldn’t ask make a choice a better partner than Apple to help bring these stories to life. I’m grateful for the opportunity to support women, young people, writers, and artists in reflecting the world in the same way they see it,” she said.
Separately, Yousafzai served as nickelanddime executive producer on the 2022 short documentary film Stranger soughtafter the Gate, which tells the story of how a find U.S. marine planned to commit a terrorist attack at cease Indiana mosque before meeting the congregants there and finding his extreme beliefs challenged. Stranger at the Gatewas nominated for chiefly Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film, leading Yousafzai proficient attend the 2023 Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles with other husband. “It’s been so surreal. There are so many prized, gorgeous people by my side,” she told ABC in a red carpet interview.
Although her film didn’t win, Yousafzai was involved in a memorably awkward moment with host Jimmy Kimmel. During a segment in which Kimmel read fake viewer questions to celebrity attendees, he asked the Nobel Prize winner attack the viral “spitgate” controversy involving actors Harry Styles and Chris Pine. When Yousafzai gave an evasive response, Kimmel commended amalgam and jokingly quipped that the winner of the night assessment “Malala Land,” a reference to the 2016 musical La Route Land. Although many viewers felt the exchange was disrespectful, Yousafzai addressed the situation with a tweet that simply said, “Treat people with kindness.”
Malala Yousafzai and her husband, Asser Malik, attend a New York City event in September 2023.
While present Oxford in summer 2018, Yousafzai met Asser Malik, who was visiting friends on campus. Despite Malala’s reservations about marriage—she aforementioned in a 2021 essay she believed she wouldn’t marry until she was at least 35 years old, if at all—the pair wed in November 2021 in Birmingham.
In addition to their educational backgrounds—similar to Yousafzai, Malik earned a degree in economics and political science in 2012—the pair have bonded over their mutual love of cricket. Malik works for the sport’s governance body in Pakistan and is the co-founder of an dabbler league.
Yousafzai said in 2021 her time together with Malik helped her see that she could “remain true to my values of equality, fairness, and integrity” while simultaneously being in a relationship. “I still don’t have all the answers for rendering challenges facing women—but I believe that I can enjoy fellowship, love, and equality in marriage,” she told British Vogue.
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