bismillahirrahmanirrahim in the name of
God the most merciful the most
beneficent your Majesties your Royal
Highnesses distinguished members of the
Norwegian Nobel Committee
dear sisters and brothers today is a day
of great happiness for me I am humbled
that the Nobel Committee has selected me
for this precious award thank you to
everyone for your continued support and
love thank you for the letters and cards
that I still receive from all around the
world your kind and encouraging words
strengthens and inspires me I'd like to
thank my parents for their unconditional
love thank you to my father for not
clipping my wings and for letting me fly
thank you to my mother for inspiring me
to be patient
and to always speak the truth which we
strongly believe is the true message of
Islam and also thank you to all my
wonderful teachers who inspired me to
believe in myself and be brave I am
proud but in fact I'm very proud to be
the first person the first Pakistani and
the youngest person to receive this
award
along with that along with that I'm
pretty certain that I'm also the first
recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who
still fights with her younger brothers I
want there to be peace everywhere but my
brothers and I are still working on that
I am also honored to receive this award
together with Kailash Satyarthi who has
been a champion for children's rights
for a long time twice as long in fact
that I have been alive
I am proud that we can work together we
can walk together and show the world
that an Indian and a Pakistani they can
work together and achieve their goals of
children's rights
dear brothers and sisters I was named
after the inspirational Malala of may 1
who is the person Joan of Arc the word
Malala means grief-stricken
sad but in order to learn some happiness
to it my grandfather would always call
me Malala the happiest girl in the world
and today I am very happy that we are
together fighting for an important cause
this award is not just for me it is for
those forgotten children who want
education it is for those frightened
children who want peace it is for those
voiceless children who want change I am
here to stand up for their rights to
raise their voice
it is not time to pity them
it is not time to pity them it is time
to take action so it becomes the last
time the last time so it becomes the
last time that we see a child deprived
of Education
I have found that people describe me in
many different ways some people call me
the girl who was shot by the Taliban and
some the girl who fought for her rights
some people call me lewb a Nobel
laureate now however my brother still
called me that annoying bossy sister as
far as I know I'm just a committed an
even stubborn person who wants to see
every child getting quality education
who wants to see women having equal
rights and who wants peace in every
corner of the world
education is one of the blessings of
life and one of its necessities that has
been my experience during the 17 years
of my life in my paradise home SWAT I
always loved learning and discovering
new things I remember when my friends
and I would decorate our hands with
henna on special occasions and instead
of drawing flowers and patterns you
would paint our hands with mathematical
formulas and equations we had a thirst
for education we had a thirst for
education because our future was right
there in that classroom we would sit and
learn and read together we love to wear
neat and tidy school uniforms and we
would sit there with big dreams in our
eyes we wanted to make our parents proud
and prove that we could also excel in
our studies and achieve those goals
which some people think only boys can
but things did not remain the same when
I was in Swat which was a place of
tourism and beauty suddenly changed into
a place of terrorism I was just then
that more than four hundred schools were
destroyed
women were flogged people were killed
you know beautiful dreams
turned into nightmares education went
from being a right to being a crime guns
were stopped from going to school
when my world suddenly changed my
priorities changed too I had two options
one was to remain silent and wait to be
killed
and the second was to speak up and then
be killed I chose the second one I
decided to speak up
we could not just stand by and see those
injustice is of the terrorists denying
God rights ruthlessly killing people
and misusing the name of Islam we
decided to raise our voice and tell them
have you not learned have you not
learned that in the Holy Quran Allah
says if you kill one person it is as if
you kill the whole humanity do you not
know that Muhammad peace be upon him the
prophet of mercy he says do not harm
yourself or others and do you not know
that the very first word of the Holy
Quran is the word Ephraim which means
read the terrorists tried to stop us and
it takes me and my friends who are here
today on our school bus in 2012 but
neither their ideas nor their bullets
could win we survived and since that day
our voices have grown louder and louder
I tell my story not because it is unique
but because it is not it is the story of
many girls today I tell their stories
too I have brought with me some of my
sisters from Pakistan from Nigeria and
from Syria who shared this story
my brave sisters Shazia and Kainat who
are also shot that day on our school bus
but they have not stopped learning in my
brave sister
why not solo who went through severe
abuse in extreme violence even her
brother was killed but she did not
succumb also my sisters here whom I have
met during my Malala fund campaign my 16
year old courageous sister mizune from
Syria who now lives in Jordan as a
refugee and she goes from tent to tent
encouraging girls and boys to learn in
my sister Amina from the north of
Nigeria where Boko Haram threatens and
stops girls and even kidnaps girls just
for wanting to go to school though I
appear as one girl though I appear is
one girl one person who is 5 foot 2
inches tall if you include my high heels
it means I'm 5 foot only I am NOT a lone
voice and not a lone voice I am many I
am Malala but I'm also sure Zia I am Chi
not I'm Kainat Soomro I am ozone
I am Amina I am those 66 million girls
who are deprived of Education and today
I'm not raising my voice it is the voice
of those 66 million girls
sometimes people like to ask me why
should girls go to school why is it
important for them but I think the more
important question is why shouldn't they
why shouldn't they have this right to go
to school dear brothers and sisters
today in half of the world we see rapid
progress and development however there
are many countries where millions still
suffer from the very old problems of war
poverty and injustice we still see
conflicts in which innocent people lose
their lives and children become orphans
we see many people becoming refugees in
Syria Versailles in Iraq in Afghanistan
we see families being killed in suicide
attacks and bomb blasts many children in
Africa
do not have access to education because
of poverty and as I said we still see we
still see girls who have no freedom to
go to school in the north of Nigeria
many children in countries like Pakistan
enough in India s Kailash Satyarthi
mentioned many children especially in
India and Pakistan are deprived of their
right to education because of social
taboos or they have been forced into
child marriage or into child labour
one of my very good school friends the
same age as me who has always been bald
and confident girl dreamed of becoming a
doctor but her dream remained a dream at
the age of 12
she was forced to get married and then
soon she had a son she had a child when
she herself was a child only 14 I know
that she could have been a very good
doctor but she couldn't because she was
a girl her story is why I dedicate the
Nobel Peace Prize money to the Malala
fund to help give girls quality
education everywhere anywhere in the
world and to raise their voices the
first place this funding will go to is
where my heart is to build schools in
Pakistan especially in my home of Swat
and shangela
in my own village there is still no
secondary school for girls and it is my
wish and my commitment and now my
challenge to build one so that my
friends and my sisters can go there to
school and get quality education and
they get this opportunity to fulfill
their dreams this is where I will begin
but it is not where I will stop I will
continue this fight until I see every
child every child in school yet with us
and sisters great people who brought
change like Martin Luther King and
Nelson Mandela mother Teresa an unsung
sushi once stood here on this stage
I hope the steps that Kailash Satyarthi
and I have taken so far and will take on
this journey will also bring change
lasting change
my great hope is that this will be the
last time this will be the last time we
must fight for education let's solve
this once and for all we have already
taken many steps now it is time to take
a leap
it is not time to tell the one leaders
to realise how important education is
they already know it their own children
are in good schools now it is time to
call them to take action for the rest of
the world's children we ask the world
leaders to unite and make education
their top priority fifteen years ago the
world leaders decided on a set of global
goals the Millennium Development Goals
in the years that have followed we have
seen some progress the number of
children out of school has been half as
Kailash Satyarthi said however the world
focused only on primary education and
progress did not reach everyone in year
2015
representatives from all around the
world will meet in the United Nations to
set the next set of goals sustainable
development goals this will set the
world's ambition for the next
generations the world can no longer
accept that the world can no longer
accept that basic education is enough
why do leaders accept
that for children in developing
countries only basic literacy is
sufficient when their own children do
homework in algebra mathematics science
and physics leaders must seize this
opportunity to guarantee a free quality
family and secondary education for every
child
some will say this is impractical or too
expensive or too hard or maybe even
impossible but it is time the world
thinks bigger your sisters and brothers
the so-called world of errors may
understand it but we children don't why
is it that countries which we call
strong are so powerful in creating wars
but are so weak in bringing peace why is
it
why is it that giving guns is so easy
but giving books is so hard why is it
why is it that making tanks is so easy
but building schools is so hard we are
living in the modern age and we believe
that nothing is impossible we have
reached the moon 45 years ago and maybe
will soon land on Mars then in this 21st
century we must be able to give every
child quality education yes sisters and
brothers dear fellow children we must
work not wait not just the politicians
and the one leaders we all need to
contribute me you we it is auditing let
us become the first generation to decide
to be the last it has become the first
generation that decides to be the last
that sees empty classrooms lost
childhoods and wasted potentials let
this be the last time that a girl or a
boy spends their childhood in a factory
let this be the last time that a girl is
forced into only child marriage
let this be the last time that a child
loses life involved let this be the last
time that we see a child out of school
let this end with us let us begin this
ending together today right here right
now let's begin this ending now thank
you so much
