It’s been four years since Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by the militants. She has come a long way since then. She has become the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize.
On 10th October, 2014, she was announced as the co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.
Malala Yousafzai was born in the Swat district of northwestern Pakistan, where her father was a school owner and was active in educational issues. After having blogged for BBC Urdu under the name ‘Gul Makai’ since 2009 about her experiences during the Taliban’s growing influence in the region, on October 9th 2012 Malala, 15, was attacked by Taliban fighters in Mingora, the main town of Swat Valley, as she travelled home from school. She was struck by a bullet just above her left eye after extremists boarded her school bus – targeting her for demanding education and standing up for children’s rights. The bullet travelled down the side of her jaw and damaged her skull. But she survived.
Amid the outpouring of global support she was flown to the UK and at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in the city of Birmingham she received specialist treatment and had a titanium plate fitted as well as a cochlear implant in her skull to help her hear.
Malala has since moved to England where she was internationally recognised for standing up for women’s rights. She began attending Edgbaston High School in March and her father was given a job with the Pakistani consulate in Birmingham for three years.
Life in England has not always been easy for her. In the beginning, post-rehabilitation she found it hard to settle at school. Everything was new and foreign. But slowly the homesickness has eased.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme a few years ago, Malala described settling into her new life.
She said: “I was feeling a little bit embarrassed and worried ... the school was quite different.”
She said she was also particularly surprised at the level of freedom afforded to women, adding: “It was difficult to adjust to this new culture and this new society, especially for my mother, because we have never seen that women would be that much free, that they would go to any market, they will be going alone with no men and with no brothers and fathers, because, in our country, if you want to go outside, you must go with a man.
“Even if your five-year-old brother goes with you it’s fine, but you must have someone else, a girl cannot go outside all alone.”
Since Malala and her father set up the Malala Fund, it has donated £2.2m to local services and global projects working to educate girls in Pakistan, Nigeria, Kenya, Sierra Leone and countries housing Syrian refugees.
“I want to continue my campaigning for the fund,” she says, “and I’m really proud to have such a strong team. When I was young, I was interested in becoming a doctor, but then I thought becoming a prime minister is very important. But now I can’t promise and I can’t clarify. I am not sure. My fund work will continue, my work for education will continue, but in terms of a job, I don’t know,” she told The Telegraph.
