Continuing Malala's Dream - Educating Pakistan

Malala Yousafzai, youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize winner and Pakistani activist for female education, continues to inspire people around the world yet again. The high school junior is currently in second place in TIME’s People of the Year Poll, putting her ahead of world figures including Pope Francis and Barack Obama.  Her struggle for education for females has crossed transnational boundaries, making her a global symbol for promoting education and bringing the challenge of ‘education for all’ at the forefront in the global development agenda.

Recently, Malala and First Lady Michelle Obama launched the “62 Million Girls” campaign that is planned to ensure millions of girls worldwide that are not currently in school, receive the social and economic opportunities to receive an education. As we know, when these girls aren’t given a chance to realize their potential, the whole world loses out. In her speech at the launch, Malala spoke about the relationship between education and poverty, highlighting the fact that although we have the resources to prioritize education and combat the challenges that lack of education can bring with it, the fact remains that these resources are being used to fund activities that are not useful to society.

“It’s not that there is lack of money in this world,” she said. “We have billions and trillions of dollars, but where the money goes is military; it’s things that are useless and that are not useful to society”, the 18 year old Nobel Peace Prize winner said.

 A key part of this “62 Million Girls” campaign is to encourage and support community-led solutions to reduce barriers that prevent adolescent girls from completing their education.

The communities we work with under Nur Foundation, comprise of many such females who come from poor socio-economic backgrounds, who might not have the resources to afford quality education or the support to continue their education but have the hunger to learn and succeed in life. Our aim is to continue on with Malala’s dream and eliminate the barriers girls face in these communities and provide them with equal opportunities to make them active citizens. Over the past 19 years, we at Nur Foundation have seen many females become success stories, inspiring their families and the community to send their daughters and sisters to school as well.