Zainab Usman

This is a video of the courageous Malala Yousafzai delivering a phenomenal speech at the UN Youth Assembly earlier today. Malala is the teenage education activist in Pakistan who recently survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban.

I was moved by her strength and passion, especially when I recalled how dozens of innocent school children were viciously murdered by terrorists in northern Nigeria recently.

For added symbolic effect, Malala delivered the powerful speech whilst wearing a shawl that belonged to the late Pakistani Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto.

Some excerpts:

“The Taliban shot me on the left side of my forehead, they shot my friends too… They thought that the bullet would silence us, but they failed. And out of that silence came thousands of voices. The terrorists thought that 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”

…and…

“Let us wage a global struggle against illiteracy, poverty and terrorism”