MALALA YOUSAFZAI Malala Yousafzai is an international symbol for the fight for girls’ education. She was born in 1997 in a small village in Pakistan, and from a very young age she adored school. Her father was a teacher and ran a girls’ school that she attended. But everything changed when the Taliban took control of her hometown in 2008. One of the first rules they enforced was a senseless ban on women in education. She was forced to say goodbye to her classmates, not knowing when – if ever- she would see them again. At just eleven years old, Malala wrote a diary under the alias Gul Makai where she depicted an awful life of fear and oppression under the Taliban. It was published by BBC Urdu. Despite the threat to her life if her identity was revealed, she carried on writing. That following year she agreed to appear in a New York Times documentary about her life and continued to give interviews no matter the consequences. “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” she once said on Pakistani TV. Malala knew she had a right to an education and was fearless in her mission. She continued to attend school in secret along with a small number of other brave girls from her village. Tragically, she was shot in 2012 less than 100 yards from her school gates. Ten days later Malala woke up in an intensive care unit in Birmingham, where doctors and nurses told her about the attack and that the world was praying for her recovery. Two million people saw her story and petitioned for her cause leading to Pakistan’s first Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill to be signed. In 2013, Malala and her father co-founded the Malala Fund to bring awareness to girls’ education globally and empower girls to demand change. Then in 2014, she became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate for her tireless work. Today she is still determined in her fight and advocates globally for quality education as a fundamental right for girls everywhere. “If one man can destroy everything, why can’t one girl change it?”- Malala Yousafzai