LONDON: The youngest Pakistani to win the Nobel Peace Prize, Malala Yousafzai has turned 19 today (Tuesday).
Born in Mingora, Swat to a Pashtun family on 12 July 1997, Malala is a popular education activist promoting education worldwide.
She rose to fame after she started writing for BBC Urdu with the pen name of Gul Makai. Her father named her after Malalai, a Pashtun movies heroine.
The world celebrates this day [12 July] as Malala day for promotion of education worldwide. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon declared July 12 as the ‘Malala Day’ in 2013 to commemorate Yousafzai’s 16th birthday and announced to observe it every year to raise awareness on the right to education, especially of girls.
On this day, Malala wants to remind the world that they have promised 12 years of education to all girls, everywhere. The hashtag #YesAllGirls has been already trending on the social media website Twitter.
According to details, on her 19th birthday, the girls’ education activist will be visiting with other girls from around the world to remind them — and the world — that all girls have a right to an education.
On July 12, 2013, Malala Yousafzai spoke at the UN to call for worldwide access to education. She made it a point during her speech that ‘Malala Day’ is “not my day,” but the “day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised a voice for their rights.”
Thousands of messages poured in from across the world on Malala Day and Yousafzai’s birthday.
In 2013, Malala Yousafzai and her father Ziauddin co-founded the Malala Fund to bring awareness to the social and economic impact of girls’ education worldwide.
On December 10, 2014, Yousafzai received Nobel Peace Prize with Indian children’s rights and education advocate Kailash Satyarthi.
