Bismillah hir rahman ir rahim. In the name of God, the most merciful, themost beneficent. Your Majesties, Your royal highnesses, distinguishedmembers of the Norweigan Nobel Committee. Dear sisters and brothers, today is a dayof great happiness for me. I am humbled that the Nobel Committee hasselected me for this precious award. Thank you to everyone for your continued supportand love. Thank you for the letters and cards that Istill receive from all around the world. Your kind and encouraging words strengthenand inspire me. I would like to thank my parents for theirunconditional love. Thank you to my father for not clipping mywings and for letting me fly. Thank you to my mother for inspiring me tobe patient and to always speak the truth - which we strongly believe is the true message ofIslam. 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 proudto be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the youngest person to receive this award. Along with that, along with that, I am prettycertain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fightswith her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but mybrothers and I are still working on that. I am also honored to receive this award togetherwith 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 canwork together and show the world that an Indian and a Pakistani, they can work together andachieve their goals of children's rights. Dear brothers and sisters, I was named afterthe 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 fightingfor an important cause. This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who wantan education. It is for those frightened children who wantpeace. It is for those voiceless children who wantchange. I am here to stand up for their rights, toraise 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 thelast time, the last time, so it becomes the last time that we see a child deprived ofeducation. I have found that people describe me in manydifferent ways. Some people call me the girl who was shotby 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 annoyingbossy sister. As far as I know, I am just a committed andeven stubborn person who wants to see every child getting a quality education, who wantsto see women having equal rights and who wants peace in every corner of the world. Education is one of the blessings of life—andone of its necessities. That has been my experience during the 17years of my life. In my paradise home, Swat, I always lovedlearning and discovering new things. I remember when my friends and I would decorateour hands with henna on special occasions. And instead of drawing flowers and patternswe would paint our hands with mathematical formulas and equations. We had a thirst for education, we had a thirstfor 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 uniformsand we would sit there with big dreams in our eyes. We wanted to make our parents proud and provethat we could also excel in our studies and achieve those goals, which some people thinkonly boys can. But things did not remain the same. When I was in Swat, which was a place of tourismand beauty, suddenly changed into a place of terrorism. I was just ten that more than 400 schoolswere destroyed. Women were flogged. People were killed. And our beautiful dreams turned into nightmares. Education went from being a right to beinga crime. Girls were stopped from going to school. When my world suddenly changed, my prioritieschanged too. I had two options. One was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then bekilled. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up. We could not just stand by and see those injusticesof 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 learned, have you not learned that in the Holy Quran Allah says: if youkill one person it is as if you kill the whole humanity? Do you not know that Mohammad, peace be uponhim, the prophet of mercy, he says, do not harm yourself or others". And do you not know that the very first wordof the Holy Quran is the word Iqra", which means read"? The terrorists tried to stop us and attackedme and my friends who are here today, on our school bus in 2012, but neither their ideasnor their bullets could win. We survived. And since that day, our voices have grownlouder 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 sistersfrom Pakistan, from Nigeria and from Syria, who share this story. My brave sisters Shazia and Kainat who werealso shot that day on our school bus. But they have not stopped learning. And my brave sister Kainat Soomro who wentthrough severe abuse and extreme violence, even her brother was killed, but she did notsuccumb. Also my sisters here, whom I have met duringmy Malala Fund campaign. My 16-year-old courageous sister, Mezon fromSyria, who now lives in Jordan as a refugee and goes from tent to tent encouraging girlsand 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 togo to school. Though I appear as one girl, though I appearas 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 lonevoice, 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 deprivedof education. And today I am not raising my voice, it isthe voice of those 66 million girls. Sometimes people like to ask me why shouldgirls go to school, why is it important to them. But I think the more important question iswhy shouldn't they, why shouldn't they have this right to go to school. Dear sisters and brothers, today, in halfof the world, we see rapid progress and development. However, there are many countries where millionsstill suffer from the very old problems of war, poverty, and injustice. We still see conflicts in which innocent peoplelose their lives and children become orphans. We see many people becoming refugees in Syria,Gaza, and Iraq. In Afghanistan, we see families being killedin suicide attacks and bomb blasts. Many children in Africa do not have accessto education because of poverty. And as I said, we still see, we still seegirls who have no freedom to go to school in the north of Nigeria. Many children in countries like Pakistan andIndia, as Kailash Satyarthi mentioned, many children, especially in India and Pakistanare deprived of their right to education because of social taboos, or they have been forcedinto child marriage or into child labor. One of my very good school friends, the sameage 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 childwhen she herself was still a child – only 14. I know that she could have been a very gooddoctor. But she couldn't ... because she was a girl. Her story is why I dedicate the Nobel PeacePrize money to the Malala Fund, to help give girls quality education, everywhere, anywherein the world and to raise their voices. The first place this funding will go to iswhere my heart is, to build schools in Pakistan—especially in my home of Swat and Shangla. In my own village, there is still no secondaryschool for girls. And it is my wish and my commitment, and nowmy challenge to build one so that my friends and my sisters can go there to school andget a quality education and to get this opportunity to fulfill their dreams. This is where I will begin, but it is notwhere I will stop. I will continue this fight until I see everychild, every child in school. Dear brothers and sisters, great people, whobrought change, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Aung SanSuu Kyi, once stood here on this stage. I hope the steps that Kailash Satyarthi andI have taken so far and will take on this journey will also bring change – lastingchange. My great hope is that this will be the lasttime, 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 torealize how important education is - they already know it - their own children are ingood schools. Now it is time to call them to take actionfor the rest of the world's children. We ask the world leaders to unite and makeeducation their top priority. Fifteen years ago, the world leaders decidedon a set of global goals, the Millennium Development Goals. In the years that have followed, we have seensome progress. The number of children out of school has beenhalved, as Kailash Satyarthi said. However, the world focused only on primaryeducation, and progress did not reach everyone. In the year 2015, representatives from allaround the world will meet in the United Nations to set the next set of goals, the SustainableDevelopment Goals. This will set the world's ambition for thenext generations. The world can no longer accept, the worldcan no longer accept that basic education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children indeveloping countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their own children dohomework in Algebra, Mathematics, Science, and Physics? Leaders must seize this opportunity to guaranteea free, quality, primary and secondary education for every child. Some will say this is impractical, or tooexpensive, or too hard. Or maybe even impossible. But it is time the world thinks bigger. Dear sisters and brothers, the so-called worldof 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 butgiving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks isso easy, but building schools are so hard? We are living in the modern age and we believethat nothing is impossible. We have reached the moon 45 years ago andmaybe will soon land on Mars. Then, in this 21st century, we must be ableto 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 decideto be the last, let us become the first generation that decides to be the last that sees emptyclassrooms, lost childhoods, and wasted potentials. Let this be the last time that a girl or aboy spend their childhood in a factory. Let this be the last time that a girl is forcedinto early child marriage. Let this be the last time that a child loseslife in war. Let this be the last time that we see a childout 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.
I am proud, well, in fact, I am very proudto be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the youngest person to receive this award. Along with that, along with that, I am prettycertain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fightswith her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but mybrothers and I are still working on that. I am also honored to receive this award togetherwith 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 canwork together and show the world that an Indian and a Pakistani, they can work together andachieve their goals of children's rights. Dear brothers and sisters, I was named afterthe 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 fightingfor an important cause. This award is not just for me. It is for those forgotten children who wantan education. It is for those frightened children who wantpeace. It is for those voiceless children who wantchange. I am here to stand up for their rights, toraise 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 thelast time, the last time, so it becomes the last time that we see a child deprived ofeducation. I have found that people describe me in manydifferent ways. Some people call me the girl who was shotby 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 annoyingbossy sister. As far as I know, I am just a committed andeven stubborn person who wants to see every child getting a quality education, who wantsto see women having equal rights and who wants peace in every corner of the world. Education is one of the blessings of life—andone of its necessities. That has been my experience during the 17years of my life. In my paradise home, Swat, I always lovedlearning and discovering new things. I remember when my friends and I would decorateour hands with henna on special occasions. And instead of drawing flowers and patternswe would paint our hands with mathematical formulas and equations. We had a thirst for education, we had a thirstfor 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 uniformsand we would sit there with big dreams in our eyes. We wanted to make our parents proud and provethat we could also excel in our studies and achieve those goals, which some people thinkonly boys can. But things did not remain the same. When I was in Swat, which was a place of tourismand beauty, suddenly changed into a place of terrorism. I was just ten that more than 400 schoolswere destroyed. Women were flogged. People were killed. And our beautiful dreams turned into nightmares. Education went from being a right to beinga crime. Girls were stopped from going to school. When my world suddenly changed, my prioritieschanged too. I had two options. One was to remain silent and wait to be killed. And the second was to speak up and then bekilled. I chose the second one. I decided to speak up. We could not just stand by and see those injusticesof 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 learned, have you not learned that in the Holy Quran Allah says: if youkill one person it is as if you kill the whole humanity? Do you not know that Mohammad, peace be uponhim, the prophet of mercy, he says, do not harm yourself or others". And do you not know that the very first wordof the Holy Quran is the word Iqra", which means read"? The terrorists tried to stop us and attackedme and my friends who are here today, on our school bus in 2012, but neither their ideasnor their bullets could win. We survived. And since that day, our voices have grownlouder 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 sistersfrom Pakistan, from Nigeria and from Syria, who share this story. My brave sisters Shazia and Kainat who werealso shot that day on our school bus. But they have not stopped learning. And my brave sister Kainat Soomro who wentthrough severe abuse and extreme violence, even her brother was killed, but she did notsuccumb. Also my sisters here, whom I have met duringmy Malala Fund campaign. My 16-year-old courageous sister, Mezon fromSyria, who now lives in Jordan as a refugee and goes from tent to tent encouraging girlsand 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 togo to school. Though I appear as one girl, though I appearas 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 lonevoice, 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 deprivedof education. And today I am not raising my voice, it isthe voice of those 66 million girls. Sometimes people like to ask me why shouldgirls go to school, why is it important to them. But I think the more important question iswhy shouldn't they, why shouldn't they have this right to go to school. Dear sisters and brothers, today, in halfof the world, we see rapid progress and development. However, there are many countries where millionsstill suffer from the very old problems of war, poverty, and injustice. We still see conflicts in which innocent peoplelose their lives and children become orphans. We see many people becoming refugees in Syria,Gaza, and Iraq. In Afghanistan, we see families being killedin suicide attacks and bomb blasts. Many children in Africa do not have accessto education because of poverty. And as I said, we still see, we still seegirls who have no freedom to go to school in the north of Nigeria. Many children in countries like Pakistan andIndia, as Kailash Satyarthi mentioned, many children, especially in India and Pakistanare deprived of their right to education because of social taboos, or they have been forcedinto child marriage or into child labor. One of my very good school friends, the sameage 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 childwhen she herself was still a child – only 14. I know that she could have been a very gooddoctor. But she couldn't ... because she was a girl. Her story is why I dedicate the Nobel PeacePrize money to the Malala Fund, to help give girls quality education, everywhere, anywherein the world and to raise their voices. The first place this funding will go to iswhere my heart is, to build schools in Pakistan—especially in my home of Swat and Shangla. In my own village, there is still no secondaryschool for girls. And it is my wish and my commitment, and nowmy challenge to build one so that my friends and my sisters can go there to school andget a quality education and to get this opportunity to fulfill their dreams. This is where I will begin, but it is notwhere I will stop. I will continue this fight until I see everychild, every child in school. Dear brothers and sisters, great people, whobrought change, like Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Aung SanSuu Kyi, once stood here on this stage. I hope the steps that Kailash Satyarthi andI have taken so far and will take on this journey will also bring change – lastingchange. My great hope is that this will be the lasttime, 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 torealize how important education is - they already know it - their own children are ingood schools. Now it is time to call them to take actionfor the rest of the world's children. We ask the world leaders to unite and makeeducation their top priority. Fifteen years ago, the world leaders decidedon a set of global goals, the Millennium Development Goals. In the years that have followed, we have seensome progress. The number of children out of school has beenhalved, as Kailash Satyarthi said. However, the world focused only on primaryeducation, and progress did not reach everyone. In the year 2015, representatives from allaround the world will meet in the United Nations to set the next set of goals, the SustainableDevelopment Goals. This will set the world's ambition for thenext generations. The world can no longer accept, the worldcan no longer accept that basic education is enough. Why do leaders accept that for children indeveloping countries, only basic literacy is sufficient, when their own children dohomework in Algebra, Mathematics, Science, and Physics? Leaders must seize this opportunity to guaranteea free, quality, primary and secondary education for every child. Some will say this is impractical, or tooexpensive, or too hard. Or maybe even impossible. But it is time the world thinks bigger. Dear sisters and brothers, the so-called worldof 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 butgiving books is so hard? Why is it, why is it that making tanks isso easy, but building schools are so hard? We are living in the modern age and we believethat nothing is impossible. We have reached the moon 45 years ago andmaybe will soon land on Mars. Then, in this 21st century, we must be ableto 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 decideto be the last, let us become the first generation that decides to be the last that sees emptyclassrooms, lost childhoods, and wasted potentials. Let this be the last time that a girl or aboy spend their childhood in a factory. Let this be the last time that a girl is forcedinto early child marriage. Let this be the last time that a child loseslife in war. Let this be the last time that we see a childout 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.
