Malala Yousafzai was born on July 12th, 1997 in Swat Valley in present day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan
From a young age, Malala was an inquisitive girl thanks to her father Ziauddin Yousafzai, who is also a Pakistani educator and activist. He ran an education center in the Swat Valley
In 2007, the political tensions in the Swat Valley became tense, and a war-like situation emerged. Taliban started taking over the valley and most of northwestern Pakistan.
The cultural pomp in the beautiful valley was no more. People were not allowed to watch television, to dance. There was complete violation of women's Fundamental Rights including educational rights.
However, Malala was an ardent advocate of education, and the Taliban forces destroying 400 schools did not deter her spirit.
In 2009, she started blogging under the pseudonym 'Gul Makai' on the Urdu BBC site. She wrote extensively about how the war-zone is turning into a nightmare for her and other girls attending school.
After the internal displacement, she and her father restored their mission to fight for the equal and quality education of girls. For her noble cause, Pakistan government awarded her National Youth Peace Prize in 2011.
However, on a fateful day of October 12, 2012 Taliban shot her. Malala was shot by a bullet which lodged in the shoulder. She was immediately airlifted to Peshawar, and four days after shifted to Birmingham, England in Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
Malala went through numerous surgeries, repairment of facial nerve that paralysed her left side. In 2013, finally, she was able to attend school in Birmingham.
World took notice of Malala's brave act. On her 16th birthday, she was invited to New York to speak at United Nations. In 2013, she wrote a memoir 'I Am Malala', and in 2014, she and her father started Malala Fund.
In 2014, she was awarded with Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by European Parliament. She visited Jordan, Nigeria to meet Syrian refugees and spoke about the abducted girls in Nigeria.
In 2014, Malala received the most prestigious Nobel Peace Prize. She dedicated the award to children across the world who were deprived from education and peace. She still a strong voice for women's education.