IN A CROWDED conference hall in Islamabad this January, an extraordinary homecoming unfolded. Malala Yousafzai, the world's youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate, stood before an audience in her native Pakistan, attending a global summit on girls’ education in the Islamic world.
“I'm truly honoured, overwhelmed and happy to be back in Pakistan,” Yousafzai told the press as she arrived at the conference, her words carrying the weight of a journey that began over a decade ago in the remote Swat Valley.
This rare visit to her homeland – the education activist was shot by the Pakistan Taliban militants in 2012 when she was a schoolgirl and has returned to the country only a handful of times since – exemplifies the courage that has defined her advocacy. Now, Yousafzai’s influence reaches far beyond the borders of Pakistan, as she confronts one of the most pressing human rights challenges of our time: the systematic oppression of women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
“The Taliban are explicit about their mission. They want to eliminate women and girls from every aspect of public life and erase them from society,” she told the summit. “Simply put, the Taliban do not see women as human beings. They cloak their crimes in cultural and religious justification.”
Addressing the attendees, including ministers, education officials, and scholars from nearly 50 Muslim-majority countries, she called for a united voice from Muslim scholars to openly challenge and denounce the Taliban’s “oppressive laws.”
“As Muslim leaders now is the time to raise your voice and use your power,” she said. “Afghan women and girls must be free to shape their own future. The very loudest champions of their cause must be fellow Muslims, leaders such as yourselves.”
Born in 1997, Yousafzai's journey from schoolgirl to global ambassador for education seems almost mythical, yet its roots lie in the everyday courage of speaking truth to power. Her early activism, chronicled I Am Malala, brought international attention to the struggle for girls’ education, culminating in the 2012 attack that nearly claimed her life.
After emergency treatment in the UK, she emerged not just as a survivor, but as a symbol of resilience. Through the Malala Fund, founded in 2014, the year she won the Nobel Prize, her advocacy has evolved into concrete action. Ten years later, its impact reaches far beyond its initial scope.
The Fund has supported 120 partner organisations across 10 countries through its Education Champion Network, investing in local activists who understand the unique challenges girls face in their communities. Their #FullForce campaign revealed a stark economic reality: if all girls received 12 years of quality education and entered the workforce, the global economy could gain up to £30 trillion annually in productivity and earnings.
The Fund's resilience and adaptability became evident during global crises. When COVID-19 threatened to derail girls' education worldwide, they responded swiftly, providing £3 million in emergency grants to 34 organisations. Their Education Champions found innovative solutions, from educational radio broadcasts in Nigeria to mobile phone lessons in Pakistan. Following the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan in 2021, the Fund committed more than £2.6m to evacuate and resettle over 300 Afghan human rights defenders and their families.
December 2023 marked a powerful moment when Yousafzai, as the youngest-ever speaker at the Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture in Johannesburg, challenged the world’s complacency toward Afghan women's rights. “It took a bullet to my head for the world to stand with me,” she said. “What will it take for the world to stand with the girls and women of Afghanistan?”
This passionate advocacy has led to the Fund providing nearly £6m in funding to Afghan education activists, supporting both those in exile and those continuing their work within Afghanistan.
The Fund's influence extends to policy changes across continents. In Brazil, their advocacy helped secure permanent funding for marginalised girls’ education. In Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa state, they achieved a 24 per cent increase in girls’ education funding, benefiting hundreds of thousands of students. In September 2024, working alongside more than 50 young women activists, Yousafzai challenged world leaders at the UN General Assembly's Summit of the Future, launching the What Girls Want campaign to reimagine education systems that truly serve girls’ needs.
What sets Yousafzai apart is her ability to weave together seemingly disparate threads of global challenge. In 2021, Malala Fund published a report on climate change and girls’ education, noting that closing gender gaps in education can help countries better adapt to the effects of climate change and decrease the rate and impact of global warming.
“Events like droughts and floods impact schools directly, displacements are caused due to some of these events,” Yousafzai said, as she attended one of the Friday climate protests outside the Swedish parliament in 2022. “Because of that, girls are impacted the most: they are the first ones to drop out of schools and the last ones to return.”
Her latest book, We Are Displaced, published in 2019, shares the stories of refugee girls she has met during her travels. “What tends to get lost in the current refugee crisis is the humanity behind the statistics,” she has said. “We hear about millions of refugees, hundreds of migrants trapped on a boat or in a truck, but it’s only when a truly shocking image appears in the news that people consider what’s really going on.”
As she continues her mission to ensure every girl has access to 12 years of free, safe, and quality education, Yousafzai's influence shows no signs of waning. Her enduring message, “One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world,” reflects not just her personal journey from the Swat Valley to global prominence, but the transformative power of education itself.
