malala yousafzai speech

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Malala Yousafzai’s Speech To UN (FULL-TEXT)

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenage girl who became a global beacon for women’s rights, delivered the following speech before the United Nations Youth Assembly on 'Malala Day', to celebrate her 16th birthday

“In the name of God, the most beneficent, the most merciful.

Honorable UN Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-moon, respected president of the General Assembly Vuk Jeremic, honorable UN envoy for global education Mr. Gordon Brown, respected elders and my dear brothers and sisters: Assalamu alaikum.

Today is it an honor for me to be speaking again after a long time. Being here with such honorable people is a great moment in my life and it is an honor for me that today I am wearing a shawl of the late Benazir Bhutto. I don't know where to begin my speech. I don't know what people would be expecting me to say, but first of all thank you to God for whom we all are equal and thank you to every person who has prayed for my fast recovery and new life.

I cannot believe how much love people have shown me. I have received thousands of good wish cards and gifts from all over the world. Thank you to all of them. Thank you to the children whose innocent words encouraged me. Thank you to my elders whose prayers strengthened me. I would like to thank my nurses, doctors and the staff of the hospitals in Pakistan and the UK and the UAE government who have helped me to get better and recover my strength.

I fully support UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his Global Education First Initiative and the work of UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown and the respectful president of the UN General Assembly Vuk Jeremic. I thank them for the leadership they continue to give. They continue to inspire all of us to action. Dear brothers and sisters, do remember one thing: Malala Day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.

There are hundreds of human rights activists and social workers who are not only speaking for their rights, but who are struggling to achieve their goal of peace, education and equality. Thousands of people have been killed by the terrorists and millions have been injured. I am just one of them. So here I stand. So here I stand, one girl, among many. I speak not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard. Those who have fought for their rights. Their right to live in peace. Their right to be treated with dignity. Their right to equality of opportunity. Their right to be educated.

Dear friends, on 9 October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends, too. They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed. And out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions. But nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage were born.

I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. And my dreams are the same. Dear sisters and brothers, I am not against anyone. Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I am here to speak for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all the terrorists and extremists. I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there was a gun in my hand and he was standing in front of me, I would not shoot him. This is the compassion I have learned from Mohammed, the prophet of mercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. This the legacy of change I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

This is the philosophy of nonviolence that I have learned from Gandhi, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa. And this is the forgiveness that I have learned from my father and from my mother. This is what my soul is telling me: be peaceful and love everyone.

Dear sisters and brothers, we realize the importance of light when we see darkness. We realize the importance of our voice when we are silenced. In the same way, when we were in Swat, the north of Pakistan, we realized the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns. The wise saying, "The pen is mightier than the sword." It is true. The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them. This is why they killed 14 innocent students in the recent attack in Quetta. And that is why they kill female teachers. That is why they are blasting schools every day because they were and they are afraid of change and equality that we will bring to our society. And I remember that there was a boy in our school who was asked by a journalist why are the Taliban against education? He answered very simply by pointing to his book, he said, "a Talib doesn't know what is written inside this book."

They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would point guns at people's heads just for going to school. These terrorists are misusing the name of Islam for their own personal benefit. Pakistan is a peace loving, democratic country. Pashtuns want education for their daughters and sons. Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. It is the duty and responsibility to get education for each child, that is what it says. Peace is a necessity for education. In many parts of the world, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism, war and conflicts stop children from going to schools. We are really tired of these wars. Women and children are suffering in many ways in many parts of the world.

In India, innocent and poor children are victims of child labor. Many schools have been destroyed in Nigeria. People in Afghanistan have been affected by extremism. Young girls have to do domestic child labor and are forced to get married at an early age. Poverty, ignorance, injustice, racism and the deprivation of basic rights are the main problems, faced by both men and women.

Today I am focusing on women's rights and girls' education because they are suffering the most. There was a time when women activists asked men to stand up for their rights. But this time we will do it by ourselves. I am not telling men to step away from speaking for women's rights, but I am focusing on women to be independent and fight for themselves. So dear sisters and brothers, now it's time to speak up. So today, we call upon the world leaders to change their strategic policies in favor of peace and prosperity. We call upon the world leaders that all of these deals must protect women and children's rights. A deal that goes against the rights of women is unacceptable.

We call upon all governments to ensure free, compulsory education all over the world for every child. We call upon all the governments to fight against terrorism and violence. To protect children from brutality and harm. We call upon the developed nations to support the expansion of education opportunities for girls in the developing world. We call upon all communities to be tolerant, to reject prejudice based on caste, creed, sect, color, religion or agenda to ensure freedom and equality for women so they can flourish. We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave, to embrace the strength within themselves and realize their full potential.

Dear brothers and sisters, we want schools and education for every child's bright future. We will continue our journey to our destination of peace and education. No one can stop us. We will speak up for our rights and we will bring change to our voice. We believe in the power and the strength of our words. Our words can change the whole world because we are all together, united for the cause of education. And if we want to achieve our goal, then let us empower ourselves with the weapon of knowledge and let us shield ourselves with unity and togetherness.

Dear brothers and sisters, we must not forget that millions of people are suffering from poverty and injustice and ignorance. We must not forget that millions of children are out of their schools. We must not forget that our sisters and brothers are waiting for a bright, peaceful future.

So let us wage, so let us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism, let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first. Thank you.”

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Malala Yousafzai Nobel Peace Prize Speech Transcript

In 2014 Malala Yousafzai gave her Nobel Peace Prize lecture. Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani education activist and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. Read her full speech transcript here.

Transcribe Your Own Content Try Rev and save time transcribing, captioning, and subtitling.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 00:05 ) Bismillah hir rahman ir rahim. 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’m 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 01:30 ) 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’m proud. Well, in fact, I’m very proud to be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the youngest person to receive this award.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 02:34 ) 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’m 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, than I have been alive. I’m proud that we can walk 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 03:49 ) Dear brothers and sisters, I was named after the inspirational Malalai of Maiwand, who is the Pashtun Joan of arc. The word Malala means grief-stricken, sad, but in order to lend some happiness to it, my grandfather would always call me Malala, the happiest girl in the world and today, I’m 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’m 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 05:28 ) 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 a Nobel Laureate now. However, my brothers still call me that annoying bossy sister. As far as I know, I’m just a committed and 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 06:51 ) 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, we 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 loved 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 08:20 ) 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 10 that more than 400 schools were destroyed. Women were flogged. People were killed. And our beautiful dreams turned into nightmares. Education went from being a right to being a crime. Girls 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 10:02 ) We could not just stand by and see those injustices of the terrorists denying our rights, ruthlessly killing people, and misusing the name of Islam. We decided to raise our voice and tell them, “Have you not learnt, have you not learnt 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 Mohammad, 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 Iqra, which means read?” The terrorists tried to stop us and attacked 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 11:25 ) 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 share this story. My brave sisters, Shazia and Kainat, who were also shot the day on our school bus, but they have not stopped learning. And my brave sister, Kainat Soomro, who went through severe abuse and 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, Mezon from Syria, who now lives in Jordan as a refugee and she goes from tent to tent encouraging girls and boys to learn. And 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 13:27 ) Though I appear as one girl, though I appear as one girl, one person, who is five foot, two inches tall if you include my high heels. It means I’m five foot only. I am not a lone voice. I’m not a lone voice. I am many. I am Malala. But I’m also Shazia. I’m Kainat. I’m Kainat Soomro. I am Mezon. 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 14:59 ) 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, Gaza, and 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 16:39 ) Many children in countries like Pakistan and India, as 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 labor. One of my very good school friends, the same age as me, who has always been a bold 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 Shangla.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 18:27 ) 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. Dear brothers and sisters, great people who brought change like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Aung San Suu Kyi, 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.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 20:21 ) 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 world leaders to realize 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. 15 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 halved, as Kailash Satyarthi said. However, the world focused only on primary education and progress did not reach everyone.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 21:49 ) In year 2015, representatives from all around the world will meet in the United Nations to set the next set of goals, the Sustainable Development Goals. This will set the world’s ambition for the next generations. 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 primary and secondary education for every child.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 23:01 ) Some would say this is impractical, or too expensive, or too hard, or maybe even impossible, but it is time the world thinks bigger. Dear sisters and brothers, the so-called world of adults 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?

Malala Yousafzai: ( 23:59 ) 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 we’ll soon land on Mars. Then, in this 21st century, we must be able to give every child quality education.

Malala Yousafzai: ( 25:05 ) Dear sisters and brothers, dear fellow children, we must work, not wait. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me, you, we, it is our duty. Let us become the first generation to decide to be the last. Let us 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 early child marriage. Let this be the last time that a child loses life in war. Let this be the last time that we see a child out of school. Let this end with us. Let’s begin this ending together, today, right here, right now. Let’s begin this ending now. Thank you so much.

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• Malala Yousafzai - Nobel Lecture

Malala Yousafzai

Nobel lecture.

Malala Yousafzai delivered her Nobel Lecture on 10 December 2014 at the Oslo City Hall, Norway.

English English (pdf, 291 kB) Norwegian

Nobel Lecture by Malala Yousafzai, Oslo, 10 December 2014.

Bismillah hir rahman ir rahim. 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 would 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, well in fact, I am very proud to be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the youngest person to receive this award. Along with that, along with that, I am pretty certain that I am 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 honoured 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, than I have been alive. I am proud that we can work together, we can work 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 Malalai of Maiwand who is the Pashtun Joan of Arc. The word Malala means grief stricken”, sad”, but in order to lend 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 a “Nobel Laureate” now.

However, my brothers still call me that annoying bossy sister. As far as I know, I am just a committed and 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 we 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 loved 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 ten that more than 400 schools were destroyed. Women were flogged. People were killed. And our beautiful dreams turned into nightmares.

Education went from being a right to being a crime.

Girls 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 injustices of the terrorists denying our rights, ruthlessly killing people and misusing the name of Islam. We decided to raise our voice and tell them: Have you not learnt, have you not learnt 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 Mohammad, 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 Iqra”, which means read”?

The terrorists tried to stop us and attacked 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 share this story. My brave sisters Shazia and Kainat who were also shot that day on our school bus. But they have not stopped learning. And my brave sister Kainat Soomro who went through severe abuse and 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, Mezon from Syria, who now lives in Jordan as refugee and goes from tent to tent encouraging girls and boys to learn. And 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 as one girl, one person, who is 5 foot 2 inches tall, if you include my high heels. (It means I am 5 foot only) I am not a lone voice, I am not a lone voice, I am many.

I am Malala. But I am also Shazia.

I am Kainat.

I am Kainat Soomro.

I am Mezon.

I am Amina. I am those 66 million girls who are deprived of education. And today I am 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 sisters and brothers, 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, Gaza and 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 and India, as 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 had always been a bold 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 still 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 Shangla.

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 to get this opportunity to fulfil 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.

Dear brothers and sisters, great people, who brought change, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela , Mother Teresa and Aung San Suu Kyi , 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 world 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 halved, 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, the Sustainable Development Goals. This will set the world’s ambition for the next generations.

The world can no longer accept, 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, primary 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.

Dear sisters and brothers, the so-called world of adults 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 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.

Dear sisters and brothers, dear fellow children, we must work… not wait. Not just the politicians and the world leaders, we all need to contribute. Me. You. We. It is our duty.

Let us become the first generation to decide to be the last , let us 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 early child marriage.

Let this be the last time that a child loses life in war.

Let this be the last time that we see a child out of school.

Let this end with us.

Let’s begin this ending … together … today … right here, right now. Let’s begin this ending now.

Thank you so much.

Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 2014

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The full text: Malala Yousafzai delivers defiant riposte to Taliban militants with speech to the UN General Assembly

Some of history’s greatest statesmen have spoken there. today, the assembly listened  spellbound to a 16-year-old schoolgirl. these are malala’s words, article bookmarked.

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Honourable UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, respected president of the General Assembly Vuk Jeremic, honourable UN envoy for global education Mr Gordon Brown, respected elders and my dear brothers and sisters: Assalamu alaikum.

Today is it an honour for me to be speaking again after a long time. Being here with such honourable people is a great moment in my life and it is an honour for me that today I am wearing a shawl of the late Benazir Bhutto. I don’t know where to begin my speech. I don’t know what people would be expecting me to say, but first of all thank you to God for whom we all are equal and thank you to every person who has prayed for my fast recovery and new life. I cannot believe how much love people have shown me. I have received thousands of good-wish cards and gifts from all over the world. Thank you to all of them. Thank you to the children whose innocent words encouraged me. Thank you to my elders whose prayers strengthened me. I would like to thank my nurses, doctors and the staff of the hospitals in Pakistan and the UK and the UAE government who have helped me to get better and recover my strength.

I fully support UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his Global Education First Initiative and the work of UN Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown and the respectful president of the UN General Assembly Vuk Jeremic. I thank them for the leadership they continue to give. They continue to inspire all of us to action. Dear brothers and sisters, do remember one thing: Malala Day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights.

There are hundreds of human rights activists and social workers who are not only speaking for their rights, but who are struggling to achieve their goal of peace, education and equality. Thousands of people have been killed by the terrorists and millions have been injured. I am just one of them. So here I stand, one girl among many. I speak not for myself, but so those without a voice can be heard. Those who have fought for their rights. Their right to live in peace. Their right to be treated with dignity. Their right to equality of opportunity. Their right to be educated.

Dear friends, on 9 October 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends, too. They thought that the bullets would silence us, but they failed. And out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought they would change my aims and stop my ambitions. But nothing changed in my life except this: weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born. I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. And my dreams are the same. Dear sisters and brothers, I am not against anyone. Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorist group. I am here to speak for the right of education for every child. I want education for the sons and daughters of the Taliban and all the terrorists and extremists. I do not even hate the Talib who shot me.

Even if there was a gun in my hand and he was standing in front of me, I would not shoot him. This is the compassion I have learned from Mohamed, the prophet of mercy, Jesus Christ and Lord Buddha. This the legacy of change I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Mohammed Ali Jinnah.

This is the philosophy of nonviolence that I have learned from Gandhi, Bacha Khan and Mother Teresa. And this is the forgiveness that I have learned from my father and from my mother. This is what my soul is telling me: be peaceful and love everyone.

Dear sisters and brothers, we realise the importance of light when we see darkness. We realise the importance of our voice when we are silenced. In the same way, when we were in Swat, the north of Pakistan, we realised the importance of pens and books when we saw the guns. The wise saying, “The pen is mightier than the sword.” It is true. The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them. This is why they killed 14 innocent students in the recent attack in Quetta. And that is why they kill female teachers. That is why they are blasting schools every day because they were and they are afraid of change and equality that we will bring to our society. And I remember that there was a boy in our school who was asked by a journalist: “Why are the Taliban against education?”He answered very simply by pointing to his book, he said: “A Talib doesn’t know what is written inside this book.”

They think that God is a tiny, little conservative being who would point guns at people’s heads just for going to school. These terrorists are misusing the name of Islam for their own personal benefit. Pakistan is a peace-loving, democratic country. Pashtuns want education for their daughters and sons. Islam is a religion of peace, humanity and brotherhood. It is the duty and responsibility to get education for each child, that is what it says. Peace is a necessity for education. In many parts of the world, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism, war and conflicts stop children from going to schools. We are really tired of these wars. Women and children are suffering in many ways in many parts of the world.

In India, innocent and poor children are victims of child labour. Many schools have been destroyed in Nigeria. People in Afghanistan have been affected by extremism. Young girls have to do domestic child labour and are forced to get married at an early age. Poverty, ignorance, injustice, racism and the deprivation of basic rights are the main problems, faced by both men and women.

Today, I am focusing on women’s rights and girls’ education because they are suffering the most. There was a time when women activists asked men to stand up for their rights. But this time we will do it by ourselves. I am not telling men to step away from speaking for women’s rights, but I am focusing on women to be independent and fight for themselves. So dear sisters and brothers, now it’s time to speak up. So today, we call upon the world leaders to change their strategic policies in favour of peace and prosperity. We call upon the world leaders that all of these deals must protect women and children’s rights. A deal that goes against the rights of women is unacceptable.

We call upon all governments to ensure free, compulsory education all over the world for every child. We call upon all the governments to fight against terrorism and violence. To protect children from brutality and harm. We call upon the developed nations to support the expansion of education opportunities for girls in the developing world. We call upon all communities to be tolerant, to reject prejudice based on caste, creed, sect, colour, religion or agenda to ensure freedom and equality for women so they can flourish. We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave, to embrace the strength within themselves and realise their full potential.

Dear brothers and sisters, we want schools and education for every child’s bright future. We will continue our journey to our destination of peace and education. No one can stop us. We will speak up for our rights and we will bring change to our voice. We believe in the power and the strength of our words. Our words can change the whole world because we are all together, united for the cause of education. And if we want to achieve our goal, then let us empower ourselves with the weapon of knowledge and let us shield ourselves with unity and togetherness.

Dear brothers and sisters, we must not forget that millions of people are suffering from poverty and injustice and ignorance. We must not forget that millions of children are out of their schools. We must not forget that our sisters and brothers are waiting for a bright, peaceful future.

So let us wage a glorious struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism, let us pick up our books and our pens, they are the most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first. Thank you.

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Full Text of Malala Yousafzai’s Speech at the United Nations

Malala Yousafzai is the 16 year old Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for demanding education for girls. She gave a speech at the United Nations on her 16th birthday last Friday, where she spoke about the importance of education. Here is the full text of her speech:

“In the name of God, The Most Beneficent, The Most Merciful. Honourable UN Secretary General Mr Ban Ki-moon, Respected President General Assembly Vuk Jeremic Honourable UN envoy for Global education Mr Gordon Brown, Respected elders and my dear brothers and sisters; Today, it is an honour for me to be speaking again after a long time. Being here with such honourable people is a great moment in my life.

I don’t know where to begin my speech. I don’t know what people would be expecting me to say. But first of all, thank you to God for whom we all are equal and thank you to every person who has prayed for my fast recovery and a new life. I cannot believe how much love people have shown me. I have received thousands of good wish cards and gifts from all over the world. Thank you to all of them. Thank you to the children whose innocent words encouraged me. Thank you to my elders whose prayers strengthened me. I would like to thank my nurses, doctors and all of the staff of the hospitals in Pakistan and the UK and the UAE government who have helped me get better and recover my strength.

I fully support Mr Ban Ki-moon the Secretary-General in his Global Education First Initiative and the work of the UN Special Envoy Mr Gordon Brown. And I thank them both for the leadership they continue to give. They continue to inspire all of us to action.

Dear brothers and sisters, do remember one thing. Malala day is not my day. Today is the day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised their voice for their rights. I speak – not for myself, but for all girls and boys.

Dear friends, on October 9, 2012, the Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead. They shot my friends too. They thought that the bullets would silence us. But they failed. And then, out of that silence came, thousands of voices.

The terrorists thought that they would change our aims and stop our ambitions but nothing changed in my life except this: Weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage was born. I am the same Malala. My ambitions are the same. My hopes are the same. My dreams are the same.

Dear sisters and brothers, I am not against anyone. Neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban or any other terrorists group. I am here to speak up for the right of education of every child. I want education for the sons and the daughters of all the extremists especially the Taliban.

I do not even hate the Talib who shot me. Even if there is a gun in my hand and he stands in front of me. I would not shoot him. This is the compassion that I have learnt from Muhammad-the prophet of mercy, Jesus christ and Lord Buddha. This is the legacy of change that I have inherited from Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The wise saying, “The pen is mightier than sword” was true. The extremists are afraid of books and pens. The power of education frightens them. They are afraid of women. The power of the voice of women frightens them.

Dear fellows, today I am focusing on women’s rights and girls’ education because they are suffering the most. There was a time when women social activists asked men to stand up for their rights. But, this time, we will do it by ourselves. I am not telling men to step away from speaking for women’s rights rather I am focusing on women to be independent to fight for themselves. Dear sisters and brothers, now it’s time to speak up.

So today, we call upon the world leaders to change their strategic policies in favour of peace and prosperity. We call upon the world leaders that all the peace deals must protect women and children’s rights. A deal that goes against the dignity of women and their rights is unacceptable. We call upon all governments to ensure free compulsory education for every child all over the world. We call upon all governments to fight against terrorism and violence, to protect children from brutality and harm. We call upon the developed nations to support the expansion of educational opportunities for girls in the developing world. We call upon all communities to be tolerant – to reject prejudice based on cast, creed, sect, religion or gender. To ensure freedom and equality for women so that they can flourish. We cannot all succeed when half of us are held back. We call upon our sisters around the world to be brave – to embrace the strength within themselves and realise their full potential.

Dear brothers and sisters, we want schools and education for every child’s bright future. We will continue our journey to our destination of peace and education for everyone. No one can stop us. We will speak for our rights and we will bring change through our voice. We must believe in the power and the strength of our words. Our words can change the world. Because we are all together, united for the cause of education. And if we want to achieve our goal, then let us empower ourselves with the weapon of knowledge and let us shield ourselves with unity and togetherness.

Dear brothers and sisters, we must not forget that millions of people are suffering from poverty, injustice and ignorance. We must not forget that millions of children are out of schools. We must not forget that our sisters and brothers are waiting for a bright peaceful future. So let us wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism and let us pick up our books and pens. They are our most powerful weapons.

One child, one teacher, one pen and one book can change the world. Education is the only solution. Education first!”

Culled from : IBN Live

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• Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (2014): Malala Yousafzai

Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (2014): Malala Yousafzai Lyrics

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• 1. Index of Nobel Lectures
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2013): Alice Munro: In her Own Words (Munro)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1995): Crediting Poetry (Heaney)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1945): Penicillin (Fleming)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1966): Banquet Speech (Agnon)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1924): Presentation (Reymont)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1982): The Solitude of Latin America (Márquez)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1956): The Contributions of Right Heart Catheterization to Physiology and Medicine, with Some Observations on the Physiopathology of Pulmonary Heart Disease (Richards)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1970): Nobel Lecture (Solzhenitsyn)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1980): Nobel Lecture (Milosz)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2010): In Praise of Reading and Fiction (Llosa)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2006): My Father’s Suitcase (Pamuk)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1938): The Chinese Novel (Buck)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1906): Award Ceremony Speech (Carducci)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1996): The Poet and the World (Szymborska)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1983): Nobel Lecture (Golding)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1958): Announcement (Pasternak)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1933): Banquet Speech (Bunin)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1993): Toni Morrison
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1901): Award Ceremony Speech (Prudhomme)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2014): Nobel Lecture (Modiano)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2012): Storytellers (Yan)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1987): Nobel Lecture (Brodsky)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2008): In the forest of paradoxes (Gustave Le Clézio)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1908): Partial Cell Functions (Ehrlich)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2015): On the Battle Lost (Alexievich)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2009): Every word knows something of a vicious circle (Müller)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2011): A Programme of Texts by Tomas Tranströmer (Tranströmer)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2007): On not winning the Nobel Prize (Lessing)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2003): He and His Man (Coetzee)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2004): Sidelined (Jelinek)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2000): The Case for Literature (Xingjian)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2005): Art, Truth & Politics (Pinter)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1998): How Characters Became the Masters and the Author Their Apprentice (Saramago)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1997): Contra Jogulatores Obloquentes (Fo)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1984): On the Pathetic and Lyrical State of Mind (Seifert)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1985): Nobel Lecture (Simon)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1990): In Search of the Present (Paz)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1988): Nobel Lecture (Mahfouz)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1989): Eulogy to the Fable (Cela)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1994): Japan, The Ambiguous, and Myself (Oe)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1979): Nobel Lecture (Elytis)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1973): Banquet Speech (White)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1977): Nobel Lecture (Aleixandre)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1975): Is Poetry Still Possible? (Montale)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1972): An Essay on the Reason of Poetry (Böll)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1974): Banquet Speech (Johnson)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1969): Award Ceremony Speech (Beckett)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1971): Towards the Splendid City (Neruda)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1966): Banquet Speech (Sachs)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1967): The Latin American Novel - Testimony of an Epoch (Asturias)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1956): Banquet Speech (Jiménez)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1963): Some Notes on Modern Greek Tradition (Seferis)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1961): Banquet Speech (Andric)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1968): Japan, the Beautiful and Myself (Kawabata)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1960): Banquet Speech (Perse)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1965): Banquet Speech (Sholokhov)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1946): Banquet Speech (Hesse)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1955): Banquet Speech (Laxness)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1957): Banquet Speech (Camus)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1950): What Desires Are Politically Important? (Russell)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1951): Banquet Speech (Lagerkvist)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1952): Banquet Speech (Mauriac)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1953): Banquet Speech (Churchill)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1929): Banquet Speech (Mann)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1944): Banquet Speech (Jensen)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1939): Award Ceremony Speech (Sillanpää)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1947): Banquet Speech (Gide)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1931): Award Ceremony Speech (Karlfeldt)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1925): Award Ceremony Speech (Shaw)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1937): Banquet Speech (Martin du Gard)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1921): Banquet Speech (France)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1934): Banquet Speech (Pirandello)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1932): Award Ceremony Speech (Galsworthy)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1930): The American Fear of Literature (Lewis)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1928): Banquet Speech (Undset)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1922): Banquet Speech (Benavente)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1927): Banquet Speech (Bergson)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1910): Presentation Speech (Heyse)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1915): Presentation (Rolland)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1917): Presentation (Gjellerup)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1923): The Irish Dramatic Movement (Yeats)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1913): Banquet Speech (Tagore)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1926): Award Ceremony Speech (Deledda)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1920): Banquet Speech (Hamsun)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1919): Presentation Speech (Spitteler)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1908): Naturalism or Idealism? (Eucken)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1907): Award Ceremony Speech (Kipling)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1909): Banquet Speech (Lagerlöf)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1903): Banquet Speech (Bjørnson)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1904): Award Ceremony Speech (Frédéric Mistral, José Echegaray)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1944): International Committee of the Red Cross, Award Ceremony Speech
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1905): Banquet Speech (Sienkiewicz)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1911): On the Laws of Thermal Radiation (Wien)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1904):The Work of the Institute of International Law (Institute of International Law)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1905): The Evolution of the Peace Movement (von Suttner)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1902): The Futility of War Demonstrated by History (Ducommun)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1926): Colour Photography (Perrin)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1906): International Peace (Roosevelt)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1944): recording the magnetic properties of atomic nuclei” (Rabi, Award Ceremony Speech)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1908): Colour Photography (Lippmann)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1901): The Occasion of the First Award (Dunant, Passy)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1937): Electronic Waves (Thompson)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1919): Structural and Spectral Changes of Chemical Atoms (Stark)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1902): The Theory of Electrons and the Propagation of Light (Lorentz)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1902): The Development of the Hague Conventions of July 29, 1899 (Gobat)
• Nobel Peace Prize (1903):The Progress and Advantages of International Arbitration (Cremer)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1902): Light Radiation in a Magnetic Field (Zeeman)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1935): Artificial Production of Radioactive Elements (Joliot-Curie)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1918): The Genesis and Present State of Development of the Quantum Theory (Planck)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1908): invention of automatic regulators (Dalén, Award Ceremony Speech)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1936): Unsolved Problems in Physics: Tasks for the Immediate Future in Cosmic Ray Studies (Hess)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1901): Osmotic pressure and chemical equilibrium (Hoff)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1902): Syntheses in the purine and sugar group (Fischer)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1938):for his work on carotenoids and vitamins (Kuhn, presentation speech)
• Nobel Lecture in Physics (1901): the discovery of the remarkable rays subsequently named after him (Röntgen, presentation speech)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1914): Atomic Weights (Richards)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1904): The Rare Gases of the Atmosphere (Ramsay)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1939): For his work on sex hormones (Butenandt, presentation speech)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1923): Quantitative Micro-Analysis of Organic Substances (Pregl)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1912): The Method of Direct Hydrogenation by Catalysis (Sabatier)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1908): The Chemical Nature of the Alpha Particles from Radioactive Substances (Rutherford)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1906): investigation and isolation of the element fluorine, and for the adoption in the service of science of the electric furnace (Presentation Speech; Moissan)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1905): work on organic dyes and hydroaromatic compounds (Presentation Speech; von Baeyer)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1909): On Catalysis (Ostwald)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1975): From the Molecular Biology of Oncogenic DNA Viruses to Cancer
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1974): The Coming Age of the Cell (Claude)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1946): The Production of Mutations (Muller)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1966): The Challenge to Man of the Neoplastic Cell (Rous)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1951): The Development of Vaccines against Yellow Fever (Theiler)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1936): The Chemical Transmission of Nerve Action (Loewi)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1965): Interaction among Virus, Cell, and Organism (Lwoff)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1947): The Role of the Hypophysis in Carbohydrate Metabolism and in Diabetes (Houssay)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1936): Some Recent Extensions of the Chemical Transmission of the Effects of Nerve Impulses (Dale)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1920): A Contribution to the Physiology of the Capillaries (Krogh)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1932): Inhibition as a Coordinative Factor (Sherrington)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1923): The Physiology of Insulin and Its Source in the Animal Body (Macleod)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1932): The Activity of the Nerve Fibres (Adrian)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1934): The Development of Liver Therapy in Pernicious Anemia (Minot)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1928): Investigations on Typhus (Nicolle)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1923): Diabetes and Insulin (Banting)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1934): Pernicious Anemia (Murphy)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1929): Antineuritic Vitamin and Beriberi (Eijkman)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1929): The Earlier History of Vitamin Research (Hopkins)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1914): Some New Methods for Functional Testing of the Vestibular Apparatus and the Cerebellum (Bárány)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1922): The Mechanism of Muscular Contraction (Hill)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1927):The Treatment of Dementia Paralytica by Malaria Inoculation (Wagner-Jauregg)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1912): Suture of Blood-Vessels and Transplantation of Organs (Carrel)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1956): The Role of Heart Catheterization and Angiocardiography in the Development of Modern Medicine (Forssmann)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1913): Anaphylaxis (Richet)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1962): On the Genetic Code (Crick)
• Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (1964) - The Quest for Peace and Justice (Martin Luther King, Jr.)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1960): Immunological Tolerance (Medawar)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1910): The Chemical Composition of the Cell Nucleus (Kossel)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1908): On the Present State of the Question of Immunity in Infectious Diseases (Mechnikov)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1958): A Case History in Biological Research (Tatum)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1948): Banquet Speech (Eliot)
• Nobel Prize Lecture in Literature (2017)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1936): Banquet Speech (O’Neill)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1909): Concerning Pathological Manifestations in Low-Grade Thyroid Diseases (Kocher)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2002) Heureka! (Kertész)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (2001): Two Worlds (Naipaul)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1959): The Poet and the Politician (Quasimodo)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1945): Banquet Speech (Mistral)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1916): Presentation (von Heidenstam)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1912): Banquet Speech (Hauptmann)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1911): Banquet Speech (Maeterlinck)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1902): Award Ceremony Speech (Mommsen)
• Nobel Lecture in Chemistry (1911): Radium and the New Concepts in Chemistry (Curie)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1902): Researches on malaria (Ross; Banquet speech)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1969): A Physicist’s Renewed Look at Biology – Twenty Years Later (Delbrück)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1935): The Organizer-Effect in Embryonic Development (Spemann)
• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1992): The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory (Walcott)
• Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (1999): Médecins Sans Frontières
• Nobel Peace Prize Lecture (1993): Nelson Mandela
• 1954 Nobel Acceptance Speech
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• Nobel Lecture in Literature (1991): Writing and Being (Gordimer)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1907): Protozoa as Causes of Diseases (Laveran)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1986): The Nerve Growth Factor: Thirty Five Years Later (Levi-Montalcini)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1949): The Central Control of the Activity of Internal Organs (Hess)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1906): The structure and connexions of neurons (Cajal)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1906): The neuron doctrine - theory and facts (Golgi)
• Nobel Lecture in Physiology or Medicine (1905): The Current State of the Struggle against Tuberculosis (Koch)
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Malala Yousafzai: Malala Day Speech at UN House Nigeria

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Abuja, Nigeria

BismillahirRahmanirRahim

Excellencies, sisters and brothers,

Ten years ago, on this day, I was sixteen years old and visiting the United Nations headquarters for the first time. The Secretary General had invited me to tell my story to an audience of 500 young people. At that moment, I could not have imagined being here with you today. I did not even know if I would live to see another decade.

I spent two years of my childhood under the terrorism of Taliban, displaced from my home and banned from going to school because I was a girl. I was shot and nearly killed for speaking out against these injustices. I did not know if my first speech at the UN would be my last — my only chance to ask the world to send every girl to school.

I am more than happy to say that I was wrong. Over the last ten years, I finished high school and graduated from university. I traveled to 31 countries. I started Malala Fund to support education activists and amplify girls’ voices. I gave a lot of speeches and talked to many leaders. In everything that I did, I tried to draw the world’s attention to girls like me — the nearly 120 million girls denied their right to education by poverty, patriarchy, climate and conflict. In the years following that first speech, I spent my birthday traveling to meet girls around the world — refugees in Jordan, Iraq, Kenya and Rwanda, Indigenous girls in Brazil, and activists and young women in Nigeria. On my three trips to this country, I have traveled from Abuja to Maiduguri. I’ve listened to heartbreaking stories from fathers and mothers who lost their daughters in the Chibok school kidnapping. I have asked two Nigerian presidents and other officials to do everything they can to ensure children are safe at school.

Several years ago, I met Amina, a student from Kaduna State. She told me she hoped to go to university and become a teacher. But she knew the challenges ahead of her — she was one of the only girls in her community still in school at 17. She spent her evenings tutoring friends who had dropped out.

Amina recently graduated from college with a degree in biology education and took her first job as an educator. I’m thrilled that Amina is here with me today — and I hope you will all congratulate her for her work teaching the next generation of girls. 

I know many girls like Amina…

In a refugee camp in Jordan, I met Muzoon — a 16 year-old Syrian who refused to give up hope for a better future. Last year she completed her masters degree in international relations and she hopes to become a journalist.

In the United States, I met Marie Claire, who first stepped into a classroom at age 11 after her family fled conflict in Congo. Having witnessed so much violence, including the death of her mother, she wanted to learn how to heal her community. Today she is an intensive care nurse.

We should celebrate the girl who goes to university, takes a job, chooses when, who and if she marries — but we should not deceive ourselves into thinking we’ve made enough progress. I want to cheer for those who made it despite the challenges they faced — but my heart aches for those who we failed. Every young woman like me has friends we saw being left behind — girls whose governments, communities and families held them back.

Just as these individual stories show us successes and setbacks, our work to advance girls’ education globally has seen major wins and obstacles in the last decade.

In 2015, we raised the global standard for education from nine to 12 years — ensuring that SDG4 would match the ambitions girls have for themselves.

In 2018, the G7 committed nearly three billion dollars to increase education opportunities for girls affected by emergencies and conflict.

And just last year, 14 African countries signed the Freetown Manifesto to promote gender equality in and through education.

I am grateful for these achievements — and the advocates, governments and UN partners who made them possible. And I am proud of Malala Fund’s work in supporting girls and activists leading the call for change.

But this handful of victories can’t hide how little has changed for hundreds of millions of girls. And now we are facing new challenges:

As Covid-19 forced children out of school, education experts knew it would take a coordinated, focused effort to make sure girls returned to the classroom as soon as possible. Yet many countries have reduced their spending or aid to education, and many low and middle income countries have to choose between paying their debts or paying for education.  Across sub-Saharan Africa, the number of out-of-school girls has increased since the pandemic. 

Ten years ago, millions of Afghan girls were going to school. One in three young women were enrolled in university. And now? Afghanistan is the only country in the world to ban girls and women from seeking education. Even as a teenager, I understood that progress could be slow — but I never expected to witness a complete reversal, an entire country of girls locked out of school, trapped in their homes and losing hope.

When you look at me or Amina or Muzoon or Marie Claire, don’t see us as “success stories” — instead imagine what our world could be if every girl in Afghanistan, every girl in Nigeria, every girl in Pakistan, every girl in every country had the education and opportunities they deserve.

I dreamed of that world a decade ago. I stood on the stage at the United Nations and, with a 16 year-old’s optimism, declared that “One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.”

But I will tell you today what I did not know then: 

One child — even with the best resources and encouragement — one child can’t change the world. Neither can one president or prime minister. One teacher, one activist, one parent — no one can change the world on their own.

What is true is that change can begin with just one person. To build a world where every child has access to 12 years of quality education, we must join forces. We must bring girls and governments together with activists and educators, parents and community leaders. I have seen what can happen when people work together for education and equality. In nine countries, Malala Fund supports local education champions who are lawyers, teachers, coders and activists. Working together,  Malala Fund champions in Nigeria convinced governors in Kaduna and Adamawa states to ratify the Child Rights Act. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan, they successfully advocated for 70% of the province’s education budget to be dedicated to girls. And we see stories like these replicated in countries around the world. 

We should follow the lead of education champions and young leaders who understand the power of collective action. And we can begin with what we’ve already been promised — by holding our leaders accountable for the commitments they so quickly abandon. We must ask those who claim to care about gender equality and education why their budgets and policies don’t match their words.  We must call again and again, [at] every opportunity, for leaders to prioritise education.  

We must also look beyond governments to our own communities. I believe that so many of the problems girls face would be solved if we could break the stranglehold of patriarchy — the misogyny we disguise as “culture”, “tradition” or “religion.” 

We need fathers like mine who stand up for their daughters’ rights. We need mothers who speak up for them and brothers who celebrate their wins. We need imams and priests who speak out against those who twist our faith to hold women and girls back. We need a community of people who do not tolerate any harm or discrimination against girls and protect their equal rights. And each of us must begin at home by challenging our own thoughts and by starting conversations with our family members and friends. 

As I’ve often said, culture is made by people — and people can change it too. I am thinking about my friends today — about Shazia and Kainat who were also injured when I was attacked. They are completing their training to be nurses — and they remain committed to advocating for girls’ education.

I am thinking of a friend who didn’t have a choice in her marriage and had to give up on her ambitions to be a teacher.

I am thinking of a friend who is my age and dreams of becoming a doctor, but has to beg her family’s permission to step outside her home.

I am thinking of all my friends who are denied the opportunities they deserve, who face misogyny and violence, who are constantly told they are not enough — but who push forward toward their goals, despite the challenges.

At sixteen years old, I couldn’t imagine what the next decade would look like — I couldn't think what it would hold for myself or girls like me. But I was hopeful because I saw the world waking up to the injustices we faced. Today I can see the future more clearly — because I have met our future leaders. Girls understand the power of education — and they are working to open the school gates wide enough for every child to enter. I know that if we match their determination, fund their work and follow their lead, we will see so much progress in the next ten years. Thank you.

Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani activist, student, UN messenger of peace and the youngest Nobel Laureate. As co-founder of Malala Fund, she is building a world where every girl can learn and lead without fear.

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