Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai
Biography By: Elleni Samaras
April 8th, 2017
Introduction
If one man can destroy everything, why can't one girl change it?
-Malala Yousafzai
On October 9th, 2012, 15 year old Malala Yousafzai left for school and never returned. She was on her school bus when a man from the Taliban stopped the bus. “Who is Malala?” He asked, and all eyes fell on the one girl in the bus who was not covering her face.
Early Life
With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.
-Malala Yousafzai
Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12, 1997, in Mingora, Pakistan, In the country’s Swat Valley. For the very first years of her life, Swat Valley was a popular tourist spot, because of it’s summer festivals. Sadly, the popularity of Swat died away when the Taliban started to take control.
She attended school at a school her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, founded. When the Taliban started to attack girls’ schools in Swat Valley, Malala gave a speech called, “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” in Peshawar, Pakistan, on September 1, 2008.
Targeted by the Taliban
We realize the importance of our voices only when we are silenced.
-Malala Yousafzai
Malala started blogging on BBC Urdu using the pen name ‘Gul Makai’ about living under the Taliban when she was only 11 years old. A few years later, the Taliban announced a death threat against Malala and her family. Though Malala was scared for her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who was an anti-Taliban activist, Malala’s family was sure that a group like the Taliban would never harm a child.
And of course, as the story goes, THEY WERE WRONG. I mean, you should never say anything like that. Anyways, back to the story, One day, when Malala got on the bus to leave for school, the bus was stopped by a man who demanded to know who was Malala. All eyes of people on the bus landed on Malala, who wasn’t covering her face. Three bullets were shot, one hit Malala, and the others hit Malala’s friends, who were sitting next to her.
Accomplishments
If I win Nobel Peace Prize, it would be a great opportunity for me, but if I don't get it, it's not important because my goal is not to get Nobel Peace Prize, my goal is to get peace and my goal is to see the education of every child
-Malala Yousafzai
Malala won a lot of awards for her age, and actually for any person. The most significant award she won was the Nobel Peace Prize. But to her, the awards didn’t really matter. If you think about it, awards are just little statues to put on a desk or a shelf, and all you ‘win’ from them are trophies and bragging rights. She doesn’t want to be known as ‘The Girl Who Was Shot By The Taliban’ but she wants to be known as ‘The Girl Who Stood up for education’.
Bibliography
I Am Malala - Book By: Malala Yousafzai
He Named me Malala - Movie
https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/7064545.Malala_Yousafzai
http://www.biography.com/people/malala-yousafzai-21362253
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziauddin_Yousafzai
https://www.cato.org/blog/why-malala-didnt-go-public-school