Malala Yousafzai, a name which needs no introduction. A name that goes hand in hand with freedom and women education. Known for her advocacy of human rights she is a godsend, especially for refugee girls.
Enraged at an extremist group which banned girl education in her home town, Malala spoke up at a press conference and expressed her views, on the audacity of snatching away a girls’ basic right to education. Henceforth, she worked her way through various NGOs where she began as a trainee and worked in schools to help young people engage in constructive discussion on social issues through the tools of journalism, public debate, and dialogue.
Watch the full interview here:
Malala and her team, fight to ensure that all girls receive at least 12 years of free, safe, and quality education. She established an NGO, the ‘Malala Fund’, dedicated to providing every girl an opportunity to achieve the future she chooses. For this she received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, becoming the youngest-ever Nobel laureate.
Author of two books; “We are displaced” and “I am Malala”, she renders various stories by refugee girls, who have often been displaced and removed forcefully from their homes, in hope to broaden the mindset of people all over the world in favour of refugees. Even though they are very large in numbers, we only about them, never from them. This is her way of giving such refugee girls an opportunity to speak out, thereby giving a voice to their stories. These refugee girls have shown extreme resilience, bravery, and courage and there is a lot to learn from them. Being a refugee is hard enough, but being a refugee girl in such a world increases those difficulties exponentially.
People in the rest of the world, who are living sheltered lives, without any fear of being flung out of their homes, have unfortunately formed a biased opinion about refugees and refuse to open their arms and welcome them into their community. In order to integrate humanity as a whole, it is important to educate society about such refugees. Refugees from an integral part of any economy. For example, if there would have been no immigrants to the “New-World”, the United States, as we know it, would never have existed.
Moving forward, it is essential to realise that education is crucial to global development as a whole. This includes the education and empowerment of women too. Simply adding secondary level education for girls imparts 13 trillion dollars to the world economy. Education reduces poverty and eliminates early child marriages. It reduces discrimination of women. It is pivotal for all girls to get every possible benefit of education. Specially refugee girls, who get married at a very early age. Activists all over the world are working towards this common goal. Malala’s vision has been an inspiration to the world and her efforts have taught us the very basic lesson of all religions; humanity.
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