SHAFAQNA – Stand #withMalala is a 12-month social action and advocacy campaign that will accompany the release of HE NAMED ME MALALA. Through audience engagement with global and in-country calls to action, the campaign aims to raise mass awareness, funding, and policy change by activating millions of people worldwide as newfound champions for girls’ education globally.
Today, over 60 million girls are out of school globally.
Stand #withMalala
The Malala Fund empowers girls through education. Inspired by co-founders, Malala and Ziauddin Yousafzai, our aim is to raise girls’ voices and ensure every girl has access to a quality secondary education.
“We cannot all succeed if half of us are held back. Education is the only solution” – Malala
Malala’s story
Malala was born on 12 July 1997 in Mingora, a town in the Swat District of north-west Pakistan. Her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai named her after Malalai, a Pashtun heroine.
Ziauddin, who has always loved learning, ran a school in Swat adjacent to the family’s home. He was known as an advocate for education in Pakistan, which has the second highest number of out of school children in the world, and became an outspoken opponent of Taliban efforts to restrict education and stop girls from going to school.
Malala shared her father’s passion for learning and loved going to school. In 2009, as the Taliban’s military hold on Swat intensified, Malala began writing a blog for the BBC Urdu service under a pseudonym, about fears that her school would be attacked and the increasing military activity in Swat. Television and music were banned, women were prevented from going shopping and then Ziauddin was told that his school had to close.