Before she rose
At 11, the Taliban banned girls from school in her valley. At 15, they shot her on her school bus.
She was a child who wanted to learn. The response was a gun. And when she survived, she understood something: they had made her louder than she could have ever made herself.
1997–present · Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan
She was shot in the head for going to school. She survived. She kept fighting.
One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.
— Malala Yousafzai, UN Speech, 2013
She was 11 when the Taliban took over her valley and banned girls from going to school. She started writing a blog — anonymously — about what it felt like to have her education stolen. She was 15 when they came for her on the school bus.
A school bus in Swat Valley. A man gets on and asks: "Who is Malala?"
She was shot at point-blank range. She was airlifted to a hospital in England. She survived.
Malala became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in history, receiving the prize at 17 in 2014.
She founded the Malala Fund, which has helped 130 million girls access education.
"They thought that the bullet would silence us. But they failed. Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born."
— Malala, at the United Nations, age 16
She did not become an activist because she wanted to be famous. She became one because she could not stay silent while something wrong was happening.
That is the only kind of activism that lasts.
What she taught us
One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.
— Malala Yousafzai, Malala Yousafzai, UN Speech, 2013
Her story. Your life.
A question worth sitting with
Malala spoke even after they tried to silence her with a bullet. What is the thing you know you should say — to your family, your boss, yourself — that fear is keeping inside you?
Take sixty seconds. Just sit with it.
A letter from her — to you
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