She goes by Malala…

I am embarrassed to say that I didn’t know about Malala until I noticed on Netflix that the David Letterman interview show (which had all kinds of famous people and stars on it) had this young girl Malala Yousafzai. I made a snarky remark to my son’s girlfriend “who’s that girl!? I never heard of her!” and she said “Are you CRAZY! That’s Malala!”  Well, she told me…

Now I know EVERYBODY should know about Malala…

…If you want to teach your daughters what it means to be a strong woman…

Malala became famous initially as the girl who got shot standing up to the Taliban in the Swat Valley of Pakistan for women’s rights to have an education (by the way, tens of millions of young girls are still deprived of even basic education). The Taliban group there found her and her friends on a bus and shot them. She was in a coma and had to endure surgery, brutal physical therapy and more to recover PLUS move away from her home so they wouldn’t come and finish the job.

Now, as a refugee, she travels all over the world and promotes education programs for children and women. Because of this, she won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. Click HERE to hear her speech during the ceremony – it’s amazing! She’s the youngest ever Nobel laureate.

 …If you want to teach your sons (or anyone) what it means to be a leader…

At KarateBuilt Martial Arts we have always had about 40% girls in our classes. I always thought that should be 50-50. If you read my earlier post about Sarah Thomas – the first female referee in the Super Bowl – you’d read my opinion on that. That 40% has to do with a social tendency to think certain activities are “for girls” or “for boys” (or another word for that is sexism). With respect to Sarah and regardless of Malala being a women, if anyone wants to learn what it means to fight for something they believe in, and have a group follow them, learn more about Malala.

More resources:

Her Organization’s Website (yes, she even has an organization):

The Malala Fund: https://malala.org/ (Click HERE)

The excellent movie about her:

He Named Me Malala (Click HERE to see it on IMDB)

Watch Her Addressing the UN! (Talk about Leadership!)

Click HERE

Her meeting with President Obama (She didn’t just meet him, she told him what she thought of his policies!)

Click HERE

Apple Just signed her to be a content creator…

Read the Fox News Article (Click HERE)\

And My favorite…

This one is posted because Malala made some jokes about Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau being young during her address of the Canadian Parliament. The last part (what makes it my favorite) was when she said “to the children… you don’t have to be as old as the Prime Minister to be a leader!”

Click HERE to watch

…and there is a lot more on Malala if you Google it.

Sincerely,