Celebrating Malala Yousafzai

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Brief introduction.

Malala Yousafzai was born in July 1997, she is a Pakistan activist and the youngest ever Nobel Prize recipient. She is mainly known for human rights advocacy, for education and for women in her native swat valley in the khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban banned girls from attending school.

On the 9th of October 2012, Malala was shot 3 times in the head while in her school bus by a taliban gunman. She remained unconscious and in critical condition, her condition later improved enough for her to be sent to queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation.

The assassination attempt sparked a national and international outpouring of support for Yousafzai.

On 10th October, exactly two years after she was shot, Malala was announced the co-recipient of the 2014 nobel prize for her struggle against the suspension of children and young people for the right of all children to education. At 17, Yousafzai is the youngest ever nobel prize winner, she shared the prize with Kailash Satyarthi, a children’s right activist from India.

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On Winning The Nobel Prize

Malala winning the Nobel Price has come with a lot of criticisms as well as applauds. After she became the youngest winner of the nobel prize last week, much of the attention fastened on her long standing critics in Pakistan. Notoriously, a journalist falsely claiming to be the editor of a national newspaper told BBC that Malala was a normal useless girl. Others claimed that, there were worthier recipients.

This is expected as no Pakistani woman who has achieved global prominence, has been spared such attacks. The misogyny often mingles with a virulent form of religiously inspired nationalism.

However, not all pakistanis think this way, a pew poll earlier this year found that only a fifth of the country had an unfavourable view of her achievement, half of the population was indifferent while 30 percent supported her.

[media-credit id=1 align=”aligncenter” width=”392″][/media-credit]The awarding of a Nobel Peace Prize to Malala should be applauded and not criticised. She has experienced and achieved more at the age of 17 than most people will in a lifetime. She has significantly used her story to inspire countless others, adults and children alike. Her name is synonymous with overcoming adversity. Malala has shown by example that children and young people can contribute to improving their own situations, but on the other hand, the world is run by adults and our responsibility to protect the rights of children, must not be delegated.

On a final note, its such a shame that most of her critics, are from her home country, but like the saying goes ” A prophet is hardly recognised in his home.

 

 

 

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