Our Work
We don’t build schools. We build networks.
Inspired by Malala and Ziauddin’s activist roots, Malala Fund believes that local educators and advocates provide the greatest insight, innovation and energy needed to address barriers that keep girls out of school in their communities.
Through our Education Champion Network, we invest in their work so they can scale their efforts and leverage their collective power to create broader change to make it easier for all girls to learn.
1997
Escaping civil war and the Taliban
In the 1990s, my family fled Afghanistan to escape the civil war and the Taliban control happening at the time. I was born as a refugee in 1997 in Pakistan and was in a camp till 2016, when we were finally allowed to return back to Afghanistan. My Activism
I see elements of my father’s courage and my mother’s dedication in my advocacy work. I never thought I would take up the path of both of my parents. My mother taught and my father led. Today, I do both. Now I think children are the mirror of their parents’ actions. I still think to myself that the fact I am loud and I talk with a loud voice is because of my mother, and the fact that I’m always going to place aside my differences with someone to work on a bigger picture is because of my father.I sometimes am grateful to my father for teaching me about strong Afghan women. I was most influenced as kid by Zarghona Ana and Gawharshad Begum. Both of them strong courageous Afghan women whose stories says how much impact a woman can make if given the right opportunities. I think it’s less about masculinity and femininity. It’s more about taking the good and putting it to use for any human.