By Amy Pitman (Originally published on Oct 9, 2013)
Volunteer, Art In Tanzania
The International Day of the Girl Child will be celebrated for the second time this Friday, with a big focus on ‘Innovating for Girls’ Education’.
In 2011, the United Nations declared 11 October the International Day of the Girl Child, giving the world a chance to recognize girls’ rights while highlighting the individual challenges they are exposed to around the world. Last year, the day focused on child marriages.
This year, the focus is on girls’ education, a broad subject that allows for different approaches by different stakeholders around the world.
Among the world’s renowned girl child education activists is a young girl from Pakistan who boldly challenged the view that girls do not have the same right to education as boys. Malala Yousafzai’s public campaign for girls’ rights was unwelcome in some circles, and the Taliban militant group shot her when she openly expressed her views on her right to girls’ education.
When the Taliban declared girls would no longer be allowed to go to school, Malala started writing a blog on BBC Urdu called ‘Diary of a Pakistani Schoolgirl’, which detailed her views on education, believing she could be more than what was expected of her.
She kept the blog anonymous, but she was not afraid to publicly speak out about these views, particularly to journalists. In February 2009, the Pakistani television presenter Hamid Mir brought his show to Swat, Pakistan, Malala’s home, and she chose this opportunity to voice these views.
Although Malala was an activist, the concern was primarily with her father, who was already known as a social and educational activist. It was never expected that the Taliban would target a child.
Malala was shot in the head in 2012 and was eventually flown to the United Kingdom to receive hospital treatment. Now aged 16 and living in Birmingham, England, she has already been nominated for an International Children’s Peace Prize and was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize this week.
Now Malala is working towards convincing the children of Britain to appreciate the education they receive, telling the BBC programme Panorama: “I want to tell the students of the UK to think that it is precious, it’s very prestigious, to go to school.”
