After becoming the youngest person to ever win the Nobel Peace Prize, all eyes are on Malala Yousafzai. At Global Citizen we couldn’t be more hyped up.
Last week my co-worker Alex Vinci shared her favorite Malala moments, or as she put it, “15 times that Malala nailed it.” Well, sorry girl, but you forgot one. You just can’t talk about Malala’s accomplishments without mentioning her work in Syria.
After surviving an assassination attempt from the Taliban, Malala has continued to use her voice to ensure all children have access to education. On July 13, 2013 (known as Malala Day) she told world leaders: "One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution."
To that end, in September 2013 Malala teamed up with UN Special Envoy Gordon Brown and NGO partner A World at School to work towards providing education for 300,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Together, they called on the international community to contribute a total of $500 million over the span of 3 years in order to reach the goal.
Then, in February 2014 Malala joined her father, Ziauddin, and a team from the Malala Fund (an organization that Malala oh so casually co-founded to empower girls around the world) to greet hundreds of Syrian refugees as they crossed the border into Jordan. She also visited the Zaatari refugee camp in an effort to raise funds for schools and teachers. There, she spoke to Renee Montagne from NPR about the desperate need for more schools and educational opportunities for children of Syrian refugees.
During the interview she talked about how the camp, home to 50,000 children at the time, only had 3 schools.
Asked how important education was for refugee children in comparison to more concrete things like food or shelter, Malala responded,
“ A child learns every day in something new. But if he is living in an environment where he sees violence, where he sees bad people, it has a very bad influence on their child. But if he's in a different environment, in a healthy environment, in an environment where he can learn, he's going to school, he has teachers, he is learning how to work in groups and how to work in collaboration with each other, so then it has a good impact on the child's future.”
All children should have access to quality education, regardless of their gender, location, political status- you get the point. So does Malala. She’s using her voice to turn that idea into a reality. Won’t you join her? Stay active on Global Citizen to ensure all kids have access to education and the chance to lift themselves out of poverty.
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