Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist who fights for the right of every girl to go to school. She was born in 1997 in the Swat Valley, a mountain region in northern Pakistan. By the time she was 17, she had survived an attempted murder, written a bestselling book, and won the Nobel Peace Prize. She is the youngest person ever to win it.

Malala's father, Ziauddin, ran a school for girls. He believed his daughter should learn just like any boy. When Malala was about 10, a group called the Taliban took over the Swat Valley. The Taliban banned music, dancing, and television. Worst of all for Malala, they banned girls from going to school. Soldiers blew up dozens of school buildings.

Malala refused to stay silent. When she was 11, she began writing a secret diary for the BBC under a fake name. In the diary, she described what life was like under Taliban rule. She wrote about being scared to walk to class. She wrote about classmates who stopped showing up. Soon people around the world were reading her words.

As she grew older, Malala began speaking out using her real name. This made her a target. On October 9, 2012, when she was 15, a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus and shot her in the head. The bullet traveled down through her neck. Doctors in Pakistan and later in England saved her life. She spent months learning to walk, hear, and speak again.

Most people would have stopped talking after an attack like that. Malala did the opposite. On her 16th birthday, she gave a speech at the United Nations in New York. "One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world," she said. The speech was heard around the globe.

In 2014, Malala received the Nobel Peace Prize. She shared the award with an Indian activist named Kailash Satyarthi, who fights against child labor. Together they started the Malala Fund, which builds schools and pays for girls' education in countries where it is hardest to get. Malala went on to study at Oxford University in England. She graduated in 2020.

Around the world, about 120 million girls are still kept out of school because of poverty, war, or old rules about what girls are allowed to do. Malala's work is not finished. But she has shown that one quiet voice, even a child's voice, can be louder than guns.