Globally known for her advocacy on girls’ education, Malala Yousafzai, author of ‘I am Malala’, the 22-year-old Pakistani activist and youngest recipient ever of a Nobel Peace Prize at just 17, graduated from Oxford University.
Ms. Yousafzai shared a picture of her self on social media covered with confetti, foam and food , a “trashing,” ceremony unique to Oxford students post exams.
Her degree at Oxford is in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. According to the NYT, “Malala began studying at Oxford in October 2017, after she was formally accepted earlier that year at one of its colleges, Lady Margaret Hall, where Pakistan’s first female prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, studied in the 1970s.”
At the age of 15, born and living in Pakistan, in 2012 , she grew to be famously known when the Taliban shot her in the head . She was in a critical condition and transferred to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, Britain. Her family permanently relocated to Britain.
With over 130 million girls out of school, her foundation, ‘The Malala Fund”, a nonprofit organization has continued to advocate for girls’ education globally.
I travel to many countries to meet girls fighting poverty, wars, child marriage and gender discrimination to go to school. Malala Fund is working so that their stories, like mine, can be heard around the world.
We invest in developing country educators and activists, like my father, through Malala Fund’s Education Champion Network. And we hold leaders accountable for their promises to girls.
In 2018, when she was entering her second year at Oxford, Malala wrote for British Vogue about how far she felt she had come since those early years fighting for an education and how she wished that other young girls would soon be able to travel that same road. “I know how lucky I am to have access to an incredible education, lectures, art, sport and new perspectives,” she wrote.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, at Oxford, all students were asked to leave in March after it closed. Now a graduate, the activist says
“I don’t know what’s ahead. For now, it will be Netflix, reading and sleep.”
