Malala Yousafzai was born on 12th July 1997. She is a school student in Pakistan, and lives in the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. That is a part of Pakistan where the Taliban are still strong and want to ban girls from attending school.
When she was eleven, Malala began to write an anonymous blog for the BBC called Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl in which she described life in the SWAT valley, school life and her hopes for female education as well as the rising threat of the Taliban. She won Pakistan’s Youth Peace Prize when her identity was revealed.
Sponsored by UNICEF, she led a delegation of children’s rights activists to local politicians and explained the terrifying risks involved in simply going to school.
The following summer, TheNew York Times made a documentary film about the attack on female education by the Taliban in the area, which included an interview with Malala and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, as well as other material covering their situation.
On 9th October this year Malala was confronted by Taliban gunmen who stopped and boarded her bus as she was on her way home from school and was shot in the head and neck. Fortunately, she survived the attack but her condition was critical and she was airlifted to a military hospital in Peshawar, where doctors performed a three-hour operation on her head and also removed the bullet that had lodged in her shoulder near her spinal cord. Subsequently, on 15th October, Malala was sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, Great Britain, for further care and rehabilitation.
In this video Ziauddin Yousafzai thanks her well wishers from all over the world for their concern:
The most recent report from the hospital website tells us that,
Malala Yousufzai remains stable and comfortable at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham.
A special fund has been set up in response to the outpouring of concern from around the world for people wanting to make a donation to show their support.
Once Malala is well enough, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham charity will ask her how she would like the money to be spent.
If you would like to donate to the charity, please go to:
Enter your details and select “Donations in support of Malala Yousafzai”.
