The Growth Faculty will bring the world’s youngest ever Nobel Prize winner, equal rights and education activist, Malala Yousafzai to Sydney and Melbourne this December. Tickets are still available. (Partner Content)
Human rights activist, Malala Yousafzai has experienced more during her 21 years than most people experience in a lifetime.
Raised in the Swat Valley of Northwest Pakistan, Yousafzai rose to prominence when she began writing blogs and publicly speaking out against the local Taliban. In particular she became a vocal advocate for girls’ education and condemned the Taliban for prohibiting this. It wasn’t long before The New York Times picked up Yousafzai’s story and chronicled it in a widely acclaimed documentary which saw the young activist nominated for a Children’s Peace Prize at age twelve.
But such public advocacy in a volatile region was not without risk. Her courage to speak up would very nearly cost Malala her life.
On October 9th 2012, while on a bus home, Yousafzai and two other girls were shot by Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt. She was struck in the head and remained in a critical condition for days before being transferred to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham UK to recover. The attempt on her life sparked global condemnation of the Taliban regime and made Malala one of the most famous teenagers in the world.
The trauma of this experience could very easily have scared Yousafzai into silence, but instead it fuelled her fire further. It drove her to launch the Malala Fund, “to give back to girls what poverty, war and discrimination tried to take away.” The fund sets out to provide free, quality secondary education to girls across developing nations including Afghanistan, Syria, India, Brazil, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Yousafzai also penned an international best-selling biography, I am Malala where she acknowledged the value of standing up against inequity. “We realise the importance of our voices only when we are silenced,” she wrote.
In 2014, Malala Yousafzai became the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of her courageous advocacy of human rights. In her speech she acknowledged the millions of girls across the world who are still denied the basic right to education. “I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education. And today I am not raising my voice, it is the voice of those 66 million girls,” she said.
“This is where I will begin, but it is not where I will stop. I will continue this fight until I see every child, every child in school,” she later added.
Now 21, Yousafzai is studying philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University in between an extensive travel schedule which sees her speaking at world forums, sharing her inspiring story and fulfilling her purpose to ensure every girl across the world is afforded a better future.
For the first time, she will add Australia to that schedule in early December.
An Evening with Malala Yousafzai presented by The Growth Faculty will see Malala take the stage in Melbourne on December 10 and in Sydney on December 11 in a world first.
“Malala is in demand worldwide and every minute of her time is precious”, said Karen Beattie, Managing Director of the Growth Faculty.
“I want to give as many members of the Australian public as I can a rare chance to hear one of the youngest and most compelling international speakers telling one of the world’s most inspiring stories,” she said. “Malala’s work cannot fail to show us all what is possible when extraordinary leadership, a single vision, and personal passion collide.”
Tickets are still available for this historic event, but get in quick.