Social scientists, economists,
policymakers and community leaders have
all agreed on the fact that if you want
to end poverty, you have to empower women
and young girls. If you want to create
peace in communities, you have to involve
women and young girls. If you want
a sustained and long-lasting economic
development, you have to educate and
empower women and young girls.
Young people here today are from Valley Park Middle School, Success Without Limits,
Spanning the Gaps, Pathways to Education, Toronto French School, Trust 15,
Harbord Collegiate, Nelson Mandela Public School and Ryerson University.
These are all young people who are hungry to make change in their communities and that indeed, is
what Ryerson and The Ryerson
Leadership Lab, is all about.
Even when they tried to silence her voice, Malala was not deterred. In fact, she became more
determined to fight for the right of 130
million girls around the world to have
access to education. Please help me by
rising to welcome Malala to the stage. Thank you.
I would like to thank you all for
your support and for standing with me in
my cause of girls' education. I have
received so much love and support from
Canada and you know I'm also honorary Canadian now, got citizenship so we are
friends now, we are really close together.
So I'm really looking forward to the
conversation, thank you. Thank you
once again.
Please help me welcome to the
stage, Lisa LaFlamme from CTV News. Thank you.
You're at Oxford and you're nearing
the end of your first year basically. Are
you the girl who gets her assignments in
on time? Or are you up all night cramming? What kind of a student are you?
I think the second one.
It is an amazing experience, just
the quality of education, you know
encourages you to evaluate, to analyze
what you read, encourages you to question
things around you, encourages you to have your own opinion. I come from you know, an
education system where children were not allowed to have different opinions and
not allowed to question things that they
read and question things that they heard
so I dream of a world where everyday a
girl can wake up without any fear, go to
school, learn and then follow her dreams
what she wants but this is not true for many girls.
You remember when you could
not go to school?
Yes, I still remember everyday when I would get up and I was scared that you know, when I would be
walking to school these extremists would
stop me. And I also remember that it was not
just these extremists but also that
ideology that women should not have
access to education or women are not as
equal as men. I would be proud of Canada
to be leading in this cause of girls'
education because when we educate girls
we produce empowered women. It also helps us to tackle climate change, helps us to
reduce poverty, helps us to have  better
quality of life. So if you want to have a
better, healthier, wealthier world, we must
invest in girls' education.
It took me a while to recover from the attack, but when I saw the support and the love and
the prayers that I had received from all
around the world, that gave me hope.
What advice do you have for all the young
people here? What one thing can they take
from today to make that change that
matters?
If you want to be change makers,
you have to take steps. Whether it is
blogging about an issue that you care
about, whether it is fundraising about a
cause that you are worried about, whether
that is environment or girls' education
or poverty. It is speaking out, it is you
know saying that you noticed something
but you are going to go and you are
going to challenge it. I was an 11 year-old girl in Swāt Valley
and I wanted to know what I
could do to fight against these
extremists and fight for my right to go
to school and I started speaking out
to media, to local channels, I started
writing blogs and that was the way for
me to raise my voice. So I think find
your way whether that is through art,
whether that is through blogging, or
social media.
I just wonder if you have any last message to everybody here on how one person clearly can make a difference?
Listen to your heart and do
follow that voice that is inside you and
believe in yourselves because sometimes
we think that, "I'm just one person and
how can I change the whole world?" But you never know and the day comes when you
realize that your voice is reaching to
millions and millions of people.
