Malala, it's such a privilege to meet you,
thank you for giving us some time.
Thank you for your time.
With your first book,
I Am Malala, obviously you were telling
your story and with this new book, We Are
Displaced, it's a communal story.
You do talk about yourself but you also
introduce us to several other young
girls from around the world. You all
have very, very specific stories to tell,
but I wondered whether there was
anything that actually united all of you together?
All the stories that I share
in We Are Displaced are the stories of
young girls who have been displaced. And
we often hear about these young girls
and these displaced people but we never
hear from them and my goal was that this
is an opportunity that we hear from
these girls in their own words.
There is something extraordinary actually about
reading each of the individual stories
that there is this strength of character
and resolve to survive actually
throughout each of their stories. I
wondered where that comes from and you
will know from your own story where that
resolve came from.
I think the strength that I see in these refugee girls is
inspiring and it's something that you
feel like they were in a situation
where they were about to shatter and
give up or they gained so much strength
that they said that nothing can defeat
them and they can overcome any barrier.
And the journeys that they have taken
you know going on a bus with strangers
jumping into these boats with
people they have not seen before, putting
their lives at risk, do not know if they
will reach the place that they dream
of, a nice beach, a place where there is
peace, a place where they can get their
education or get a job. Would they
ever get to that place or not?
And the fact that they cannot stay in
their home because there
is bombing, their lives are at risk, they
have lost their parents, there
are people who are threatening their
lives. So all I see is this courage among
these girls.
There's a very striking image quite early on in your story; when you were packing to leave your
home you gathered together a collection
of books which you put together in a
bag and you were told you couldn't take
that bag with you, there was not enough
room so you were very upset and had to leave
those books behind. I wanted first of all
if you could tell me what was so
important
for you about those books for you
personally.
That was my schoolbag and those
were my schoolbooks and I just did not
want to miss out on anything. I wanted to
continue my education, continue learning
and just continue touching the books
just to feel like I still have access to
the power of education. And it's also
important for girls, especially in
communities where otherwise they would
be kept inside their houses. And there
are so many external barriers so the
only way out for girls is to get an
education, you know, get a job, become
independent, speak out for themselves,
protect them from early child marriages,
child trafficking. So education in a way
is not just learning but also a
protection for girls and in an
empowerment for girls. So for me I
just said I want to be close to my books
but my mom said no you know this is time
that we are leaving our homes, we are
going to a place, we don't know if we
will get there or not, so pack some
clothes and some shoes and that's it.
In fact when you returned home the first thing
you did was to go upstairs and check
that the books were still there!
I went and I was checking my bag and in the books
were all there and I was so happy because
I did not want to miss out on my school
education. As soon as I came back I said
I'll continue reading the same books.
Now of course you're in the UK at University,
at Oxford. I wonder what it's like, having
known how precious it was, that small bag
of books, to now be able to walk into a
bookshop or a university library and see
that huge array of books.
Yeah I'm so grateful every day, there are so many
libraries, every college has a library
then they're like university libraries, you can literally find any book there.
So I'm just so grateful. I always dreamed
about getting into Oxford University and
you know finally I'm here it's a
prestigious and great institution and I
I'm just so grateful for it.
You also mention in the book that when it
became clear that you and your family
were going to have to leave Swat Valley you
you cried and you say that you did that
despite not normally being a very
emotional person. I was quite struck by
that idea because you do have this
strength of character and in fact you
share that with the other girls in your
new book. But I wondered whether
everything you've been through, has that
sort of strengthened that resolve of
character or encountering other girls
and similar stories has that helped you
to sort of tap into the
emotions again for what you've been
through.
To be honest it's a mix of emotions.
You know you hear
from these young girls and they inspire
you because of their courage. You know
one girl is forcing to get married at
the age of 14 and and she runs away and
she protects herself from that. Another
girl is crossing the borders or another
girl sees her mother being killed in
front of her and she's still not giving
up and is studying in the U.S. wanting
to become a nurse. So you know these are just so powerful and inspiring
stories, it is emotional you know, it does
make you cry, does bring tears into your
eyes. But it makes your heart even
stronger. I'm just
getting inspired from these girls. I have
my own journey as well but when you are
in that situation, you know, you have
so many other difficulties and so many
other challenges that you just forget
about crying, you just forget about tears
and you forget about you know becoming
weak and just you know you have so many
other things to worry about.
You mentioned there about inspiration. Of
course so many people have been inspired
by your story not least people like
Michelle Obama and people around the
world and I wondered who you got inspiration from?
I have many inspirations like from Martin Luther King,
to Nelson Mandela, to Benazir Bhutto.
And there's so many incredible people
in the history that inspire us. But the
people who inspire me mostly and
deeply are the girls who I meet. You know
the girls I've met in Iraq, in Nigeria,
in Jordan and Lebanon, in Brazil; these
stories are so inspiring. And some of the
stories I have mentioned in my book
which will inspire people who will read
these stories; their resilience and
bravery inspire me.
I think it will inspire readers and in fact on finishing the
book there will be lots of people who
will wonder what can I do to improve the
lot of people like this. Do you have any
advice of you know what people could
actually practically do on finishing
your book to help?
There are many ways in
which people can help. I think the first
one is to learn more about refugees and
their stories and just go beyond statistics
and figures. Secondly you know I
share the story of one woman in the US
who is out there helping refugees in her
community, Jennifer is her name. So just
like how we can help refugees in our
community whether it's helping them in
their shopping or helping them apply to
universities or just having a
conversation with them or a cup of tea
with them. But also the final thing is
that you can buy the book because you
know you will learn about the stories
but also when you buy the book the money
goes straight to the work that we do at
Malala Fund for refugee girls' education.
Well as you say, all of the girls in this
book have incredibly inspiring stories
to tell, as I say that strength of
character is I think something that's
common in all of you
and so thank you for sharing not only
your story but theirs too.
Thank you, it was great talking to you.
