Malala's Journey to Peace PDF

# EPILOGUE ## October 2015 Over a year has passed since the first edition of this book came out, and three years since the October morning when I was shot by the Taliban on a school bus on my way home from class. My family has been through many changes. We were plucked from our mountain valley in...

# EPILOGUE ## October 2015 Over a year has passed since the first edition of this book came out, and three years since the October morning when I was shot by the Taliban on a school bus on my way home from class. My family has been through many changes. We were plucked from our mountain valley in Swat, Pakistan, and transported to a brick house in Birmingham, England's second-biggest city. I have met world leaders and made friends in my new school. A documentary film was made about my family and me. I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Sometimes it all seems so strange that I want to pinch myself. I'm eighteen now, and one thing that has not changed is that I still don't like getting up in the morning. The most astonishing thing is that it's my father whose voice wakes me now. He gets up first every day and prepares breakfast for me, my mother, and my brothers, Atal and Khushal. He doesn't let his work go unnoticed, of course, going on about how he squeezes fresh juice, fries eggs, heats flat bread, and takes the honey out of the cupboard. "It's only breakfast!" I tease. My brothers and I then all rush off to our different schools. And so does our mother, which truly is one of the biggest changes of all. She attends a language center five days a week to learn how to read and write and also to speak English. My mother had no education, and perhaps that was the reason she always encouraged us to go to school. "Don't wake up like me and realize what you missed years later," she says. She's faced so many challenges in her daily life in England because, up until now, she's had difficulty communicating when she's gone shopping or to the doctor or the bank. Getting an education is helping her become more confident, so that she can speak up outside the home, not just inside it with us. At first I thought we would never feel settled here, but Birmingham has started to feel like home. It will never be Swat, which I miss every day, but now when I travel to other places and return to this new house, it does feel like home. I have even stopped thinking about the constant rain, although I laugh when my friends here complain about the heat when it's 77 degrees Fahrenheit. To me, that feels like spring. Although I have made friends at my new school, Moniba is still my best friend, and we Skype for hours at a time to catch up on everything. When she talks about the parties back in Swat, I so wish I were there. I still keep in touch with Shazia and Kainat, the other two girls who were shot on the bus and are now at Atlantic College in Wales. It is hard for them being so far away and in such a different culture, but they know they have a great opportunity to fulfill their dreams of helping their communities. The school system here is quite different from the one we had in Pakistan. In my old school, I was considered "the smart girl." I had this idea that I would always be the smartest one and that whether or not I worked hard, I would always come in first. Here in the UK, the teachers expect more from their students. In Pakistan, we used to write long answers. You really could write anything you liked; sometimes the examiners would get tired and give up reading part of the way through, but still give you high marks! In England, the questions are often longer than the answers. Perhaps the expectations in Pakistan were lower because it was so challenging just to be in school. We didn't have good science labs, computers, or libraries. All we had was a teacher with a whiteboard, standing in front of the students and their textbooks. Back home I was called a bookish girl because I had read eight or nine books. But when I came to the UK, I met girls who had read hundreds. Now I realize I've read hardly anything at all, and I want to read all those hundreds of books. I've done my GCSEs, which stands for General Certificate of Secondary Education and is a series of tests in the UK that students must take. They are extremely important, especially if you plan to continue your education, which of course I do. It was the happiest day of my life when I found out I did well. Eventually I will do my A levels (more UK tests). Then I plan to go to university to study politics and philosophy. I'm still hopeful that I can return to Swat and see my friends, my teachers, my school, and my house again. Perhaps it will take time, but I'm sure it will be possible one day. My dream is to return to the country where I was born and become an influential politician so that I can serve the people. Sadly, Maulana Fazlullah, the man who was the head of the Swat Taliban who ordered the attack on me, is still the head of the whole Pakistan Taliban. That has made it even riskier for me to return. But I will get an education, I will learn more about history, I will meet interesting people and listen to their opinions, I will continue to fight against ignorance and terrorism. Thanks to the extraordinary doctors here in Birmingham, my health is good. When I first got out of the hospital, I had physiotherapy once a week to help me heal, and I needed a lot of support. The doctors say that my facial nerve is now up to 96 percent recovered. The cochlear implant has helped my hearing, and the doctors say that in the future they may come up with even newer, better technology. I don't get headaches anymore and I play sports, though people still take care not to throw a ball at my head! I'm fairly good in some sports, like cricket and rounders (which I'm told is similar to the American game baseball), though of course my brothers disagree. My brothers have settled in, though I fight with Khushal as much as ever. Atal makes us all laugh. He uses very dramatic language and is so full of energy that he also makes us all tired. He got a lot of attention and praise when the film He Named Me Malala was released around the world. We all did. But a lot more people got to see how Atal is like the little squirrel. It was strange the first time I watched this movie about my life and our family. Even though I had already told my story in a book, this was different. I felt shy about it, but I know that the more people who learn about my story, the more people will hear my message, and the more of a chance we will have of achieving the goal of education for all. In fact, the movie released in the United States around the time of the UN's General Assembly. So the same week that I attended my movie premiere in New York City, I also made another speech at the UN, this time as part of the launch of the Sustainable Development Summit, where I urged world leaders to support quality education for all children. I even spoke at the Global Citizen Festival in Central Park (with four of my friends, including Shazia and Kainat). It was the largest crowd I've ever addressed-nearly sixty thousand people were there. People like Ed Sheeran, Beyoncé, and Coldplay performed at this festival to raise awareness about the UN's Global Goals, which seek to fight inequality and end extreme poverty. When it was my turn to be onstage, I spoke about the sixty-six million girls around the world who are deprived of education and how my dream is for everyone to live in peace and for education to be the top priority of these goals. Because how can we fight inequality and poverty when so many are denied the right to education? When I think of all the people I have spoken to and the places I have traveled in the last couple of years, it amazes me, and yet still I feel I can always do more. Through the Malala Fund, I decided to advocate for the education of Syrian refugees. I went to the Syrian border and witnessed scores of refugees fleeing into Jordan. They had walked through the desert to get there with just the clothes on their backs. Many children had no shoes. I broke down and cried as I witnessed their suffering. In the refugee settlements most of the children were not going to school. Sometimes there was no school. Sometimes it was unsafe to walk to school. And sometimes children were working instead of being educated because their fathers had been killed. I just felt such pain in my heart. What is their sin, what have they done that they've had to migrate? Why are these innocent children suffering such hardship? Why are they deprived of school and a peaceful environment? I met a girl called Mizune who was my age. Every day she goes from tent to tent trying to persuade people to send their children to school. She told me that she wants to be a journalist so she can help people understand what's going on. I asked her, "If you could do anything, what would you do?” and she said, "I want to see my home again and stop these wars." I spent my seventeenth birthday in Nigeria, showing solidarity with the schoolgirls abducted from their dormitory in the dead of night by Boko Haram militants in April 2014. Those girls were my age and all had dreams of being doctors or teachers or scientists. They were very brave and special girls, as only 4 percent of girls in northern Nigeria finish school. The world easily moves on to other issues, and I don't want people to forget. We will have another Malala Fund project there. In October of that year, almost two years to the day after I was attacked, I received an honor so great I could hardly believe it was real: I became the youngest person ever to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. I was at school in my chemistry class when I found out. The deputy head teacher came into the classroom and called me outside. Was I in trouble? I wondered. Had I done something wrong? When she told me I had won the Nobel Peace Prize alongside children's rights activist Kailash Satyarthi, I was shocked. I responded very formally. I thanked her for the news and said that I was honored. It was only when I saw tears in my teachers' eyes when they came up to congratulate me that the meaning of the news really sank in. Everyone was so happy for me and I was happy, too, because the cause that had been a part of my life for so long had been recognized in such an important way. The teachers called an assembly, and I was asked to speak in front of the whole school. I was so nervous. Speaking in front of your teachers and fellow students is much scarier than addressing the UN! I'm not sure I remember what I said. But I think it was about education, women's rights, and peace. Straight after that, I went to my physics class. I did not leave school until the school day was over. I am so grateful that the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to recognize the rights of children. And the more I learned about Kailash, the more precious it felt to me to be sharing the award with him. I was humbled to meet this kind and committed man. He leads by example, showing that adults have the responsibility to protect children and recognize their rights. He shows that love exists and that our kindness and care can make a huge difference. He works tirelessly and rescues children from slavery and child labor. The ceremony itself was beautiful and inspiring. I was so happy to be joined by my brave friends from Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria, including Shazia and Kainat and Mizune. They have also had to stand up for their rights. It meant so much to me that we could experience the Nobel ceremony together. In the last year, I have worked tirelessly in my role as an education activist through the Malala Fund. I have traveled to conflict-hit areas to raise awareness about the plight of children who are deprived of an education. I have started projects in Jordan, Pakistan, Kenya, and Nigeria. On my eighteenth birthday, I returned to the Syrian border to open a school in Lebanon for refugee children and to demand that world leaders invest in books, not bullets. I have tried to raise awareness about the plight of refugees to help increase support for them. I have spoken to world leaders and encouraged them to raise the education budgets of their countries and pushed powerful nations to give greater education aid to developing ones. At the Malala Fund, we are growing our work every day, but I know there is so much left to do. I thank God that I have been given this platform. This is now my life's work, my mission, and my dream. So much has changed these past few years, but really I am the same old Malala who was going to school in Swat. My life has changed, but I have not. If you were to ask my mother, she would say, "Well, maybe Malala has become wiser, but she's still the same quarrelsome girl at home whose shirt is in one place, trousers in another, the same messy girl who's always crying, 'I haven't done my homework!" Some things, even if they are small, do stay the same. Many of our friends back in Pakistan probably think we are very lucky to live in England in a nice brick house and go to good schools. My father is education attaché for the Pakistan consulate and an adviser for global education for the UN. It would be a dream life for many young, ambitious Pakistanis. But when you are exiled from your homeland, where your father and forefathers were born and where you have centuries of history, it's very painful. You can no longer touch the soil or hear the sweet sound of the rivers. Fancy hotels and meetings in palaces cannot replace the sense of your true home. All of us have been overwhelmed by the warm reception we have received around the world and the reaction to the books and film, which have helped people to understand our story. When I get prizes, I send the money to Swat to help children go to school or adults buy small businesses, like a shop or a taxi to drive so that they can earn money for their families. We have received many letters, even one from an elderly man in Japan who wrote, “I am an old poor man but I want to help," and sent us a note for ten thousand yen without a return address so that we couldn't thank him. It is people's love and encouragement that gives me the energy to continue my fight. I will never give up on advocating for peace and education for all. I want to build schools and make sure there are qualified teachers in as many places as I can. That is something else that hasn't changed: I am the same stubborn girl who will never give up.