Malala Yousafzai

Hailed as an international symbol of courage, human rights activist Malala Yousafzai survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban at the age of just 15 to become a world-renowned advocate of children and women's education. Named after the Pushtun poet Malalai of Maiwand, Yousafzai was born in the Swat District of Pakistan in 1997, where she was encouraged to pursue her interest in politics at a young age by her private school owner father. She made her first speech in 2008 at the Peshawar Press Club focusing on the Taliban's attempts to take away her basic education rights, and a year later worked in schools across the region to debate such issues as a member of the Open Minds Pakistan youth program. Adopting the pseudonym Gul Makai, Yousafzai was asked to write about her experiences as a schoolgirl during the First Battle of Swat for the BBC Urdu website. The diary series attracted the attention of The New York Times reporter Adam B. Ellick, who subsequently filmed a documentary about Yousafzai which gained worldwide attention, while several appearances on "Capital Talk" (Geo News, 2002-), a debate with the US special advisor on Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, on the state of women's education, and an awarding of her homeland's first National Youth Peace Prize continued to boost her profile. Tragically but inevitably Yousafzai became a target of the Taliban determined to silence her pro-secular education sentiments, and while traveling on a school bus in 2012, she was shot point blank with a single bullet which went through her head and neck and lodged in her shoulder. After being airlifted to a nearby military hospital, Yousafzai underwent a five-hour life-saving operation and was later moved to the UK to receive further treatment. The assassination attempt sent shockwaves across the world, sparking protests in several Pakistani cities and inspiring two million people to sign the Right to Education campaign petition. Yousafzai was discharged from hospital in early 2013 and despite further death threats from the Pakistani Taliban she soon carried on where she had left off, speaking before The Queen, the UN and Harvard University later that summer, confronting Barack Obama over the use of drone strikes in Pakistan and writing a memoir with British journalist Christina Lamb whose audio version would go on to win a Grammy. In 2014 Yousafzai shared the Nobel Peace Prize with children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, becoming both the youngest and the first ever Pakistani winner. On her 18th birthday in 2015 she opened up a school in Lebanon near the Syria border for Syrian refugees, called on world leaders to 'invest in books, not bullets,' and became the subject of an acclaimed documentary film, "He Named Me Malala" (2015).