Today’s Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai first came to international attention when she took the brave step of agreeing to blog for the BBC about her life under the Taliban occupation in Pakistan’s Swat valley. On 9 October 2012 a Taliban gunman shot her in the head as she rode a bus home from school. Since her recovery she has been awarded an endless string of awards, addressing audiences around the world. Here are some of her most impressive moments.
July 2013, on her 16th birthday, a still-recovering Malala addressed the UN on the importance of education:
We realise the importance of our voice when we are silenced. In the same way, when we were in Swat, the north of Pakistan, we realised the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns. The wise saying, ‘The pen is mightier than the sword.’ It is true. The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them.
In August 2013, she was awarded the international children’s peace prize.
In September 2013 Malala opened Birmingham’s new £188m library. She was flown to Birmingham for treatment after she was shot and currently attends school there. She addressed the crow as “fellow Brummies”.
Birmingham is very special for me because it is here that I found myself alive, seven days after I was shot.
It is now my second home, after my beloved Pakistan. The doctors and nurses of this town worked hard to help me recover. The teachers of this town strived to rehabilitate my educational career, and the great people of this city gave me great moral support.”
In October 2013, Malala visited the Queen at Buckingham Palace to talk about the importance of education. Prince Philip joked with her that in the UK people want children to go to school in order to get them out of the house. She apparently found this very funny.
The same month she appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Stewart asked her:
I know your father is backstage and he is very proud of you, but would he be mad if I adopted you?”
Also that month she was awarded the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, named after Soviet scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov. Previous winners have included Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and Kofi Annan.
In a meeting with Obama a few days later, Malala brought up the difficult issue of drone strikes. “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism,” she said in a statement released after the meeting. “Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education it will make a big impact.”
