The youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist for female education. Born in Mingora, Pakistan, in 1997, Yousafzai was educated at the school her father ran until the Taliban took control of her town in the Swat Valley. Owning a television, playing music, and dancing were prohibited, and girls were no longer permitted to attend school. By the end of 2008, over 400 schools had been destroyed.

Determined to go to school and with a firm belief in her right to an education, Yousafzai stood up to the Taliban. Alongside her father, Yousafzai quickly became a critic of their tactics. “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” she once said on Pakistani TV. Yousafzai and her father became known throughout Pakistan for campaigning for Pakistani girls’ right to education.

One day, however, when Yousafzai was on a bus heading home from school, the Taliban stopped the bus and fired three shots at her. Malala was seriously wounded. That same day, she was airlifted to a hospital and four days later to an intensive care unit in Birmingham, England.

Once in the UK, Yousafzai was taken out of a medically induced coma and underwent multiple surgeries. In March 2013, after weeks of treatment and therapy, Yousafzai was able to begin attending school in Birmingham and to continue her campaign around the globe. Since then, she established the Malala Fund – a charity dedicated to providing girls worldwide an education; received the Nobel Peace Prize; and graduated from Oxford University!

Find out more about Malala Yousafzai here: Malala Yousafzai