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       Education Activist Malala Named Joint Winner of Nobel Peace Prize

   by Reuters

   Last year, 16-year-old Pakistani schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai was the
   youngest person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. This year,
   she was the joint winner for her work as an education activist. She has
   become an internationally-recognized symbol of resistance to the
   Taliban's efforts to deny women education and other rights.

   Malala's hometown of Mingora in Pakistan's Swat Valley was infiltrated
   by militants from Afghanistan more than six years ago and for a time
   the community was living under the influence of the Pakistani Taliban.
   The Taliban set up courts, executed residents and closed girls'
   schools, including the one that Malala attended.

   She rose to fame when she wrote a blog under a pen name about living
   under Taliban rule. She spoke out against the militants, demanding
   education for girls, at a time when the government appeared to be
   appeasing the hardline Islamists.

   On October 9, 2012 Taliban gunmen fired on Malala's school bus,
   shooting her in the head and neck at close range and wounding two of
   her classmates.

   She was treated in Pakistan before the United Arab Emirates provided an
   air ambulance to fly her to Britain, where doctors mended parts of her
   skull with a titanium plate.

   Unable to return safely to Pakistan, Malala enrolled in a school in
   Birmingham, in Britain.

   She not only survived the attack, but recovered to the extent that she
   celebrated her 16th birthday in July 2013 with a passionate speech at
   the United Nations in New York in which she appealed for compulsory
   free schooling for all children.

   Wearing a pink head-scarf, Malala told U.N. Secretary-General Ban
   Ki-moon and nearly 1,000 students attending an international Youth
   Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York that education was the only
   way to improve lives.

   "Let us pick up our books and our pens. They are our most powerful
   weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the
   world. Education is the only solution. Education first," she said.

   Malala has gone on to make several public appearances and has received
   a number of honors.

   In September 2013 she was awarded the 'Clinton Global Citizens Awards'
   at a ceremony in New York.

   During her acceptance speech she touched on issues ranging from child
   labor and poverty to inequality and injustice among women from
   Afghanistan to Syria.

   "Women are not even accepted as human beings, they are treated with
   injustice and inequality. Women are denied, they are neglected even in
   the developed countries, where they are not given the opportunities to
   move forward and be what they want. Even in America, even in America,
   people are waiting for a woman president," she said.

   Pakistan has five million children out of school, a number only
   surpassed by Nigeria, which has more than 10 million children out of
   school, according to the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/education-activist-malala-joint-winne
   r-nobel-peace-prize/2479118.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/education-activist-malala-joint-winner-nobel-peace-prize/2479118.html