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Malala Yousafzai: Risked Her Life For Girls’ Education

By Fejiro Onohwosa
12 July 2018   |   12:49 pm
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education advocate who, at the age of 17, became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban. Born on July 12, 1997, Yousafzai became an advocate for girls' education when she herself was still a child, As a young girl, Malala…

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education advocate who, at the age of 17, became the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize after surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban.

Born on July 12, 1997, Yousafzai became an advocate for girls’ education when she herself was still a child, As a young girl, Malala Yousafzai was not allowed to go to school. However, she refused to stay home and spoke out for education and almost got killed for standing up for her beliefs.

On 9 October 2012, while on a bus in the Swat District, after taking an exam, a Taliban gunman shot Yousafzai and two other girls in an assassination attempt in retaliation for her activism; the gunman fled the scene.

Yousafzai was hit in the head with a bullet, remained unconscious, and in critical condition at the Rawalpindi Institute of Cardiology, but her condition later improved enough for her to be transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, UK.

She survived and has continued to speak out on the importance of education. In 2013, she gave a speech to the United Nations and published her first book, I Am Malala. In 2014, she won the Nobel Peace Prize.

To this day, Malala continues to work to ensure that every girl around the world has the chance to go to school.

The UN has designated July 12, which is Yousafzai’s birthday, Malala Day in honour of the young woman who has been a prominent activist for female education since her early teens and a strong voice for women empowerment across the globe.

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