At 17, Malala Yousafzai becomes the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner for her work promoting children's rights. Sharing the prize with fellow activist Kailash Satyarthi, 60, of India, Malala pointed out the significance of the occasion.
"One is from Pakistan. One is from India. One believes in Hinduism. One strongly believes in Islam. And it gives a message to people," she said in her acceptance speech. "It gives a message to people of love between Pakistan and India and between different religions... It does not matter what's the color of your skin, what language you speak, what religion you believe in. It is that we should all consider each other as human beings."
Malala has been fighting for a young person's right to an education since she was 11. It started with a blog for the BBC in which she chronicled the Taliban's systematic reign of terror in her childhood home of Mingora, Pakistan. Malala and many other girls risked their lives to attend school.
On October 9, 2012 the Taliban tried to stop her. She was shot in the face on her way home from school. "They thought the bullets would silence us," she said at the UN on her 16th birthday. "But they failed."
Malala's voice is only becoming stronger. Her Nobel Prize is a testament to that.
"Through my story I want to tell other children all around the world, they should stand up for their rights," she said today. "They should not wait for someone else, and their voices are more powerful."
Watch Malala's entire Nobel Prize speech here. (Digg)
Photo by Antonio Olmos for Parade Magazine.
