Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai Takes Education Plea To UN, On Her 16th Birthday!
Culture & Lifestyle Jul 12, 2013
Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for advocating education for girls, marked her 16th birthday with a heart wrenching speech at the United Nations.
Wearing a pink head scarf, Malala told UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and nearly 1,000 students from around the world attending a Youth Assembly at UN headquarters in New York on Friday that education was the only way to improve lives.
"Let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution," she said.
"The terrorists thought that 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."
The UN has declared her birthday, July 12, as "Malala Day".
The Pakistani teenager, who first came to public attention at the age of 11 for speaking out against a ban on girls' education, was shot in the neck and head by Taliban gunmen last October on her way home from school in Pakistan.
She left a Birmingham hospital in February after she recovered from surgery during which doctors mended parts of her skull with a titanium plate and inserted a cochlear implant in her left ear to help restore hearing.
The speech, in which Malala called for “a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism,” was her first major public appearance since a Taliban gunman shot her in the head at point-blank range last October.
“The Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends, too,” Malala said in her speech.
“They thought that the bullet would silence us, but they failed.”
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon referred to Malala as “our hero, our champion” in his introduction to the teenaged activist’s speech. “She was targeted just because of her determination to go to school and learn,” Mr. Ban said.
“Targeting Malala shows what they feared most: a girl with a book.”
Former U.K. prime minister and the UN’s special envoy for global education Gordon Brown called it a “miracle,” given her injuries after the attack, that Malala could be speaking at the UN Friday morning
“Let me repeat the words – the words the Taliban never wanted her to hear – Happy 16th birthday Malala,” Mr. Brown said.
According to the report by UNESCO and the Save the Children aid agency, the total number of children of primary school age who are not getting an education has fallen from 60 million in 2008 to 57 million in 2011, but during that period the percentage of youth in conflict-affected countries who aren’t at primary school rose from 42 per cent to 50 per cent.
In Syria, about 3,900 schools have either been destroyed, damaged or are occupied for non-educational purposes, the report released on Friday said.
The report says more than a fifth of Syrian schools have been made unusable since the conflict began in March 2011.
Feature Image : Photograph: T Mughal/EPA
Other Image: (BRENDAN MCDERMID/REUTERS)
Video Courtesy of United Nations
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