International Malala Day, or Malala Day, is observed every year across the globe on 12th July to commemorate the birth anniversary of Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani education activist and the youngest Nobel Prize laureate.
- The day highlights the global fight for girls’ education and raises awareness about the right to education for all.
Background:
i.On 12th July 2013, (her 16th birthday), Malala Yousafzai made her first high-level public appearance by delivering a powerful speech at the United Nations (UN) headquarters in New York, the United States of America (USA).
- Her speech focused on equal access to education for girls across the world and established her as a global symbol for girls’ education.
ii.The UN officially declared her birthday as Malala Day, which was celebrated internationally for the first time on 12 July 2013.
- The celebration supported the UN Secretary-General’s Global Education First Initiative (GEFI), gathering hundreds of young leaders to promote free and compulsory education for all children.
Note: GEFI was a 5-year global initiative launched to mobilise global support and actions to ensure quality, inclusive, and relevant education for all by the year 2015.
About Malala Yousafzai:
i.Malala Yousafzai was born on 12 July 1997 in Mingora, Swat Valley, Pakistan.
ii.In January 2009, at the age of 11, she began blogging under the pseudonym “Gul Makai” for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Urdu website, sharing her experiences of life under Taliban rule and the restrictions on girls’ education.
iii.In 2012, Malala was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman while returning home in a school bus, in retaliation for her activism for girls’ education.
iv.In 2013, TIME Magazine named her among “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.”
- In the same year, she and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai co-founded the Malala Fund to amplify awareness about the impact of girls’ education and to empower young girls to advocate for their rights.
v.In 2017, UN Secretary-General António Guterres appointed her as a UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on girls’ education.
Nobel Peace Prize:
i.In October 2014, Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian child rights activist, were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
- Malala became the youngest-ever Nobel laureate at the age of 17, and the first Pashtun and second Pakistani to receive a Nobel Prize.
ii.The first Pakistani Nobel Prize winner was Physicist Abdus Salam, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1979.
Other Recognitions and Awards:
i.In 2012, the Government of Pakistan awarded her the National Peace Award, later renamed the National Malala Peace Prize, for individuals under 18 years of age.
ii.In 2013, she received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.
iii.In 2023, Oxford University’s Linacre College (UK) honoured Malala with a prestigious honorary fellowship, making her the first Pakistani to receive such recognition from the college.
- This also further strengthened the relationship between Linacre College and the Oxford Pakistan Programme (OPP).
Books Authored by Malala:
- I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and was Shot by the Taliban (2013) – Co-authored with Christina Lamb.
- We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World (2019).
- Malala Speaks Out (2023).
Cultural Appearance:
In May 2024, the second season of the British TV sitcom “We Are Lady Parts” aired an episode titled “Malala made me do it” featured Malala’s acting debut, marking her entry into popular culture and entertainment.
