This young lady is Malala Yousafzai who is a Child Activist born in 1997. Her biography begins: As a young girl Malala Yousafzai defied the Taliban in Pakistan and demanded that girls be allowed to receive an education. She was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 but survived.
At age 17 she became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. By simply going to school she became a global teacher. Surely every school-aged young person in America should know her story. Malala has said,
"The shocking truth is that world leaders have the money to fund primary and secondary education around the world, but they are choosing to spend it on other things, like their military budgets. In fact, if the whole world stopped spending money on the military for 8 days, we could have the 39 billion dollars still needed to provide 12 years of free, quality education to every child on the planet."
Her motto is: Books Not Bullets. She invites children around the world to send online photographs of themselves holding up their favorite books. The link here invites us to put our name to something BIG and planet-changing. Jesus often lifts up, brings forward and celebrates children.
Some people will take great delight in Malala, but someone else might scoff at her because she asks money for books instead of bullets. Military spending is a Golden Calf for some. But children are dreamers and "dreams can come true" we say. Some adults stopped dreaming of possibilities a long time ago and that's very sad.
Malala's Request
