Malala Yousafzai

Imagine yourself sitting on a school bus. Suddenly two men stop your bus. One talks to the driver the other starts walking toward you. He calls your name. You have no idea who this man is or what he wants. Everybody on the bus looks at you and says nothing. The man looks at you then BANG! BANG! BANG! He fires his pistol three times. One bullet finds your neck while the others find your head. This was Malala Yousafzai’s reality Good morning teachers, ladies and gentleman judges and fellow students. Today I’m going to talk to you about somebody extraordinary. Her name is Malala Yousafzai. First I’m going to talk about her childhood and the hardships she faced. Then I’m going to talk about the tragic thing that happened to her. Then finally I’m going to talk about what she’s doing now. Malala Yousafzai had a very tough childhood. She was born on July 12, 1997. She was given the first name Malala which meant grief stricken. She lived in a house in Mingora Pakistan with her two younger brothers, her parents and their two pet chickens. She was educated in large part by her father who is a poet, school owner, and an educational activist. She started talking about education as early as September 2008 when her father took her to local press club where she said, “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education.” Malala continued to talk about the unfairness of the Taliban’s rules and how the Taliban must let everybody go to school. The Taliban was infuriated and on October 9th 2012 was the day that Malala was shot in the head and in the neck by a Taliban worker. When Malala was on the bus that day two gunmen stopped the bus. One distracted the driver while the other walked to the back of the bus. He called Malala by name then shot her in the neck and in the head. In the days immediately following the attack, Malala remained unconscious and in critical condition but later her condition improved enough for her to be sent to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham England