Malala yousafzai biography facts for kids

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Malala’s mother’s name was Toorpekai Yousafzai and she cared for Malala and her siblings.

The Taliban told people from Pakistan that they should not let girls go to school anymore.  It was an old-fashioned idea that they wanted to bring back to the country.  However, Malala’s father disagreed with this idea.  He thought that all kids should get to go to school so that they could learn important life skills and take care of themselves and get good jobs.

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Early Life

Malala’s father ran one of the last girl’s schools that continued to run even though the Taliban government told all the girl’s schools to shut down.

For the first few years of her life, Malala’s hometown was a popular place for people to visit on vacation.  People from around the country would visit the town for summer festivals. 

Unfortunately, the town and the country started to change when a new government took control of the country.  A government is a group of people that make decisions about how a country will work and the rules that the people in the country will follow.  In Pakistan at the time that Malala was a young girl, a very strict government called the Taliban tried to take control.

Who were Malala Yousafzai’s parents?

Malala lived at home with her father and mother when she was a girl.  Her father’s name was Ziauddin Yousafzai and he was a schoolmaster at a local school and someone who believed strongly in his ideas that all children should go to school.

Parts of her speech were even used in a song called "Speak Out."

On July 12, 2015, her 18th birthday, Malala opened a school for Syrian refugees. She was born on July 12, 1997 and lived with her parents, Ziauddin and Toor Pekai Yousafzai. The book became an international bestseller. She is also the first Pashtun and the second Pakistani to win a Nobel Prize.

In her home region of Swat, a group called the Pakistani Taliban sometimes stopped girls from going to school.

Malala learned from a very early age that this was very important to girls and to her country.

Malala listened to her father and on September 1, 2008, when she was 11 years old, she gave her first speech at a community hall in Peshawar.  The title of her speech was, “How Dare the Taliban Take Away My Basic Right to Education?”  It was a speech that was about her opinion that the Taliban government should not close down girls’ schools or forbid them from attending.

In Trouble with The Taliban

It was a scary time in Pakistan for people to speak out about the government.  The Taliban government was very strict and very powerful.  Strict means telling people that they have to behave a certain way and exactly what they have to do so they won’t get in trouble.  They scared Malala and others who spoke out about them and disagreed with what they were doing.

Because Malala did not want to get in trouble, she started writing using a fake name to write articles: Gul Makai.  She wrote articles on the internet for a famous news company from Britain called the BBC.  Malala wrote about what it was like to live with such a strict government and the articles were published for people from all around the world to see.  She thought she was safe because her identity was secret.  However, someone found out who she was and told other people that it was Malala who was writing the articles.

The Taliban government was angry at Malala for saying bad things about them and the things that they believed and their rules.  They decided that they wanted to kill Malala and her family so that she could not speak out about them anymore. 

Even though Malala was frightened for her family’s safety, she didn’t think that the Taliban government would hurt her because she was a kid and so she carried on with her speeches.

She used the secret name Gul Makai. She was just 11 years old when she published anonymous blog entries through the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). He was also an activist for education. The UN named this day "Malala Day." It was her first public speech since the attack. She was even nominated for the International Children's Peace Prize.

A Difficult Day

On October 9, 2012, something terrible happened.

It shares stories from Malala's own life and the lives of other refugees she has met. In her blog, she shared what life was like when the Taliban controlled Swat. Malala has said, “I am proud of all my identities—as a Swati (a person living in Swat Valley), as a Pashtun, and as a Pakistani.” 

Photo credit: Malin Fezehai for Malala Fund

From an early age, Malala’s father, who ran an all-girls school in Swat Valley, encouraged Malala to pursue an education and to speak up for girls’ right to an education.When the Taliban announced that girls were no longer allowed to receive an education, Malala and classmates attended school in secret.

She bravely asked, "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?" Her speech was reported by newspapers and TV channels.

In early 2009, when she was 11, Malala wrote a blog for BBC Urdu. She fights for every girl's right to go to school. She finished her high school education at Edgbaston High School from 2013 to 2017. Her fight for education has now become a worldwide movement.

This made her the youngest person ever to receive this important award. A Taliban gunman shot Malala while she was on a bus in Swat District. The school is in the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon, near the Syrian border. This petition, called "I am Malala," had three main goals:

• We want Pakistan to make a plan for every child to get an education.
• We want all countries to stop treating girls unfairly.
• We want international groups to make sure that the 61 million children who are not in school get an education by the end of 2015.

Life in the UK

After she recovered, Malala moved to Birmingham, England.

You can read her first entries here.