A young girl, Malala Yousafzai is known to stand up against the Taliban in Pakistan. She demanded that girls should be allowed to receive an education. Born in July 1997, she is currently 19 years old. In 2012, she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman but survived. She went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 and is the youngest recipient at age 17.

Here is her Nobel Peace Prize speech:

Her hometown, Mingora, Pakistan, changed as a result of the Taliban tried to take control. Her father founded a school she attended. The Taliban started attacking girls’ schools so Malala gave a speech in 2008 called “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?”

She began blogging for the BBC in 2009 about the threat of the Taliban to deny her education under the pseudonym Gul Makai. She was nominated for the International Children’s Peace Price in 2011 for her activism. She was awarded the National Youth Peace Prize by Pakistan that year.

When Malala was 14 years old, the Taliban had issued a death threat against her. Her family didn’t feel someone would actually harm a child. However, on October 9, 2012, a man boarded her bus and shot her in the side of the head. She was flown to a military hospital in Peshawar and transferred to Birmingham, England. She had to have multiple surgeries. March 2013 she began attending school in Birmingham.

Malala has written an autobiography, I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban. She is still considered a target by the Taliban.

This is her speech at the UN in 2013

Her 18th birthday, July 12, 2015 (also called Malala Day), she opened a school for Syrian refugee girls in Lebanon.

You can join her fight for education of girls at her website:
https://www.malala.org/

Read more: http://www.biography.com/people/malala-yousafzai-21362253