Malala Yousafzai, Warrior For Peace

Imagine a place where just over half of girls make it to elementary school. Imagine a place where just twelve percent of girls make it to high school. Imagine a place where girls are married off by their parents as young as twelve are married off by their parents and become mothers while they are still children. This is the world that Malala Yousafzai was born into. In Pakistan, Malala’s native country, there are more than twenty-five thousand children who are not in school, making illiteracy an epidemic. This means that in the next generation, there will be more that sixty-million children growing up with illiterate mothers (Wariach). Malala is among these children. She was born into a household with a mother unable to read, although some say that her father more than makes up for it. Ziauddin Yousafzai, a prominent man in the district of Swat where Malala was raised, was also an outstanding scholar. For a long time prior to Malala’s birth, Ziauddin had dreamed of opening a school, and shortly before her arrival, he made that dream a reality. He opened the Khushal School, a school where both girls and boys would be equally welcome to receive an education. The effect of this was that Malala was practically raised in a school (Yousafzai). She would play in the classrooms, and by the time she was two, she was sitting in on classes with ten year olds (Baker). She also was incredibly aware of the fact that not everyone was as fortunate as her to have an education, and from an early age she wanted to do something to make a change (Yousafzai). Malala was later set up with the ability to greatness, and she took it, making enormous contributions in the fields of education, feminism, and peace. Right off the bat, most people do not recognize the name Malala Yousafzai. However, many will recognize “the girl who was shot in the head and survived”. Malala is widely known