I Am Malala 22486m

Malala Yousafzai is a school pupil and education activist from the town of Mingora in the Swat District of Pakistan's province. She is known for her activism for rights to education and for women, especially in the Swat Valley, where the Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school.

Her story begins in Pakistan in a lush, beautiful place called Swat Valley.

In the early 2009,at age 12,the fragile girl that appeared to be Malala revelead the first glimpses of the vocal education activist who soon will become.

At 3 January 2009 she started to write a blog under the byline "Gul Makai" ("cornflower" in Urdu),for the BBC Urdu. She would hand-write notes and then them on to a reporter who would scan and e-mail them.

“It seems that it is only when dozens of schools have been destroyed and hundreds others closed down that the army thinks about protecting them. Had they conducted their operations here properly, this situation would not have arisen.“

-Malala Yousafzai 24 January 2009 BBC blog entry

Malala refused to cover her face black out her being underneath a burqa,because by doing it would mean to surrender her dreams and be the slave of injustice and discrimination.

After some months her blog had ended,she appeared on a New York Times documentary entitled “Class Dismissed in Swat Valley”. Her public profile rose even further when she was awarded Pakistan's first National Youth Peace Prize two months later in December.On 19 December 2011, Prime Minister awarded her the National Peace Award for Youth. At the proceedings in her honor, Yousafzai stated that she was not a member of any political party, but hoped to found a national party of her own to promote education.

• As Yousafzai became more recognized, the dangers facing her became more acute. Death threats against her were published in newspapers and slipped under her door.The Taliban were planning to kill her. • Tuesday 9 October 2010 was the day when everything changed for Malala. She was shot in the head and neck in an assassination attempt by Taliban gunmen while returning home on a school bus. In the days immediately following the attack, she remained unconscious and in critical condition, but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, England, for intensive rehabilitation.

• On 12 July 2013, Yousafzai's 16th birthday, she spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education. The UN dubbed the event "Malala Day". It was her first public speech since the attack. • "The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions, but nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born ... I am not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I'm here to speak up for the right of education for every child.”

Malala Day