In Conversation with Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai's new book, Finding My Way, gives a personal insight into her journey as a world leader in promoting education for women and girls. She continues to inspire people to dedicate themselves to access to opportunity for all. 

Malala’s mission is to improve peoples’ lives, through education, and as she comments in the new book, also through access to other types of involvement, including women’s access to sports. She expands pathways to learning and opportunity, relevant for the students, faculty, staff, and the wider University of Michigan community. 

Speaker bio:

Malala Yousafzai became an international symbol of the fight for girls’ education after she was shot in 2012 for opposing Taliban restrictions on female education in her home country of Pakistan. In 2009, Malala had begun writing a blog under a pseudonym about the increasing military activity in her hometown and about fears that her school would be attacked. After her identity was revealed, Malala and her father Ziauddin continued to speak out for the right to education.

The Taliban’s attack on Malala on 9 October 2012 as she was returning home from school with her friends received worldwide condemnation. In Pakistan, over 2 million people signed a right to education petition, and the National Assembly ratified Pakistan's first Right to Free and Compulsory Education Bill.

In 2013, Malala and her father co-founded the Malala Fund to bring awareness to the social and economic impact of girls' education and to empower girls to demand change. In December 2014, she became the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate. Secretary-General António Guterres designated Malala as a United Nations Messenger of Peace in 2017 to help raise awareness of the importance of girl’s education.

Faculty Expert

Susan D. Page

Professor of Practice in International Diplomacy at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy and Professor from Practice at University of Michigan Law School. Director; Weiser Diplomacy Center.

Page applies her vast foreign policy experience to the Weiser Diplomacy Center. She has served the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations in senior roles for decades, across East, Central, and Southern Africa, and in Haiti and Nepal. Page was the first U.S. ambassador to the Republic of South Sudan and served as Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations in Haiti.