 Hi everybody. Thank you for your patience. I am here with someone who needs a very little introduction. I'm Miriam Elder, the world editor at BuzzFeed News. This is Malala Yusofzai, who you probably are all very well aware of, a Pakistani activist, activist for women's education, the youngest ever recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, and we're very very excited to have her here at the World Economic Forum, at the Open Forum. Welcome. So I'm so excited to talk to you because it's such an interesting moment in time. It's when we're seeing governments and groups around the world growing ever more repressive, talking about building walls, at the same time we have women around the world rising up, calling for equality, speaking out against sexual harassment, and I can think of no one better to speak about this than you. So I'd love to hear first about your journey to feminism. You once said that feminist for you was a tricky word. You now embrace it. So what changed for you and what does that word mean for you now? Well, thank you so much for coming here and it's an honor to speak to you today. When I first heard about feminism, it was not about women's rights, it was not about equality, but it was just these messages that I was seeing that feminism is controversial and that feminism is women's superiority and these views exist and I just wasn't sure what this word means and then I just looked more into it and I realized that feminism is just another word for equality. It means equality and no one would object equality, no one should object equality and it just means that women should have equal rights as men. And then I said, well, it's very simple. It's not as complicated as some people have made it. And then I embraced feminism and I was already a feminist speaking out for girls' education, speaking out for women in Pakistan and then all around the world. When you speak about women's rights, you become feminist, even if you embrace it or not. And right now looking at the world and how women are standing up and raising their voice or their stimes up or me too, this movement is building up by women and they are realizing that their voice is so important to the change that they want to see. And I said it long ago at the UN speech that first we wanted men to do something for us but that time is gone now. We're not going to ask men to change the world. We are going to do it ourselves. We are going to stand up for ourselves. We are going to raise our voices and we are going to change the world. So I would really encourage women and girls to speak out against any discrimination, any violence that they see in their community, in their society. So you spend a lot of your time when you're not studying. You spend a lot of your time thinking about activism for girls' education. How has the me too movement and the times up movement changed your thoughts about how you need to approach education for girls in particular? Education is really important and it's about how we teach our children about the world, about equality, about human rights and I think it's so important that our education gives the message of equality to every child and this is where a child's mind builds up and right from the beginning if we teach equality at school level I think they would develop the sense that they have equal rights as girls in their school and girls have equal rights as boys in their school. So I think education can play a key role in giving the message of equality and yes. And so you've told us your message to the people who support me too and times up which is speak up when you can. We also have a lot of government leaders here at Davos right now. Trump is flying in of course tomorrow. What would your message be to someone like Trump who has his own history or lack of history with women's rights? What kind of message would you want him to hear from you here? I just get so disappointed to see that people are at this high positions and they are openly, they talk against women, they do not accept women as equal, they harass women and it's just shocking for a second to believe that this is actually happening and I hope that women stand up and they speak out against it and I hope that people who are involved in such shameful things they think about their own daughters, their own mothers and their own close female relatives and just imagine for a second that can they let it happen to their daughters, to their sisters, to their mothers and I don't think they would accept that. So I think they need to look at it from that perspective as well but also if they, because I can't change a person I'll try all my best to give advice but I think it's a time for women to raise up their voice so their voices are heard and their voices reaches those years and if their voices reaches those minds that still have those views that we are trying to fight against and for a second we thought that they didn't exist but they still exist. This is a time where increasingly around the world it seems like people feel more and more disconnected from their governments that governments don't necessarily exist to take care of the people. How has that influenced your own life? Is that something that you have felt and what do you feel the role of government should be in the kind of issues that we're talking about? So in terms of governments, what my focus has been is encouraging governments and trying to get them to invest in girls' education because that's one way towards women empowerment. There are 130 million girls right now who cannot go to school and if you talk about women's empowerment, their equality, if you talk about women participating in the economy, women becoming part of the labour force, women contributing to the whole development of a country, we have to invest in their education. So in terms of my work on education I do advocacy, try to reach to governments, like now I'm here at World Economic Forum, my message is always to encourage these governments as well as business groups to bring education, especially girls' education to their top priorities and invest in girls, it's going to benefit the girls and the communities where they are living but also contribute to the whole economy and the benefits are unlimited and we have to remind them this. I'd love to switch a little bit now and ask you a bit about your life as a person. You do so much, you're a full-time student at Oxford, you're here now, you're doing all this activism, what does an average day in your life look like? At Oxford it's quite hard because you have to do two or three essays a week and it's challenging because I'm doing PPE which is three different subjects, philosophy, politics and economics and every teacher would give you their work so one would say do the philosophy work, do the economics work and you have to manage your time yourself, I think that's what university life is all about. Your time is with you and here's the work that you have to do, here are the assignments, here's the extractivities that you want to get involved in so it's just managing your time and I miss two days of my university and I'm just panicking a bit how am I going to finish all the essays but I hope that giving up these two days would help me deliver the message of education for all those 130 million girls who are out of school and we have to keep on fighting for this. If we remain silent, just imagine for a second, every day how many girls do we lose? There is potential that we are losing and I realize this more because I go and I visit refugee camps, I was recently in Lebanon and I met Syrian refugee girls in a room and I was asking all of those girls what their dream was, what did they want to become in their future and one girl said she wants to become an architect and I asked why and she said she wants to become an architect because when she was leaving her country she saw that her country was destroyed and devastated and on that day she decided that one day she will come back and she will rebuild her country and the war has actually affected these children, there is early child marriages, there is child trafficking, there is those norms and taboos that are stopping girls in their fight to achieve their dreams. So I think about these girls every day and then I say okay, you have to go and study but also speak out for those girls because I cannot imagine losing those girls. They are a resource for their community, for all of us, just imagine like in this room how many girls do we see here? Imagine for a second that you were living in a society where if you did not get education you would be just limited to your house, all your job was cooking, cleaning, taking care of children and that's it. You would never be able to have a voice to speak out for yourself, to have rights and I think that's something that many girls are facing right now and we have to protect them as individuals but also think about its benefits to each and every one of us. So you have devoted your life to living these experiences and it's a noble cause but one that I can imagine takes quite a deep psychological and emotional toll. So what do you do to keep yourself strong and when you have one of these days where you just feel like you can't take this all on anymore, what do you tell yourself to keep going? Well I know for sure that it is not one person's job to do this and I know that I can't send all girls to school, it would be nearly impossible but what I can do is I can send as many as possible, I can speak about as many as possible and what is under my potential I will do that, I will do my job but what I also try to do is to reach out to as many people as I can whether they are from the business sector from the government, from the NGO sector to encourage them to invest in girls education and I think it's just reminding everyone that they can also have a role in this whether it's media, whether it's business or government that they all can play a role in this and it's a responsibility that we all should realize that we can all participate in this and we can all contribute to this so it can be stressful sometimes because you want to change the world in a day and you realize you can't but as you keep on going in like five years when I started Malala Fund I just did not know what to do and I said I want all girls to go to school but how to get them in school and now like looking back five years we have done projects in Pakistan in Afghanistan, in Lebanon, in Jordan we are expanding to Mexico we have done work in India we have done film campaigning we are empowering local leaders and local advocates which we call the Gul Makai Network we named it Gul Makai because this was the pen name that I was using for my BBC blog and we are introducing our advocate program so things are happening and more and more girls are speaking out for themselves and we are encouraging local advocates to bring change in their community so I do see change and I am hopeful I am positive so I asked Twitter what questions I should ask you and there was one that came back over and over and over again and people are really curious to know where you draw your inspiration from and particularly which books you are into I really like reading stories of women and girls and one book that is always my favorite and it was just staying true to your goals and try to keep on moving even though you may face many difficulties in your way but you have to keep on moving and that is something that I am doing I just keep on moving but also I read a story about Mina which was an Afghan hero and it was an inspirational book of how this woman struggled for women's rights and equality and Parvana's journey and the breadwinner so I really like reading about girls' stories who have overcome challenges in their lives and who have fought for their rights You are such a public figure is there anything that you miss from not having the privacy that you once had? I think if you go out and if you are, I don't know you have to be just careful because if people recognize you then they know it's you so you have to be careful but I do have friends and I have two younger brothers so I try to stay normal I am a girl and I am a student and I am 20 years old and I want to have my social life at university I want to have my social life with my friends I want to have my social life with my brothers which is fighting so I do go to like cinema or go and play mini golf so I try my best This is probably the worst question for a college student but what are you thinking for the future? Will you stay in the UK? I know I am sorry but are you thinking to stay in the UK? To be honest for university yes for sure I am staying but hopefully if the work is not too bad and I can manage it yes of course I am staying for that but after university I just don't know probably yes but I hope that I can go back to Pakistan sometime and see my country because it is just so hard if you haven't seen your home your relatives, your friends for more than five years and it wasn't that I left that country by choice it was the circumstances that forced me to leave so I want to go back to Pakistan and I don't know my father wants me to study further and I don't know do masters and PhD and he wants me to like stick to university and I am saying I want to maybe do some more work and explore more after I finish my PPE degree at Oxford and what for you has been the most the most challenging thing the most difficult thing in communicating your message so I have I deliver my message at different platforms I go and I speak at refugee camps to parents and girls I go and I speak at schools in Lebanon and Jordan I go and I speak at business communities I speak at global forums as world economic forum I go and I meet prime ministers and presidents so I'm speaking at different events and the challenge is very depending on where you are and I think one of the biggest challenges is just getting enough funding for education there's lack of funding there's lack of investment in education funding towards education is declining every country is cutting their aid towards girls education and we have to keep pushing for this and I go to a refugee camp and I try to inspire young girls and their parents and often most of the time it works parents say yes we want our children to go to school but there is not a school nearby or there are not enough teachers and then you say you also have to then advocate that there is enough funding so there are schools available there are enough teachers available and I hope that our leaders realize that they have to invest in education they have to provide enough funding towards education so that we don't lose this future generation this potential that we have the number is in millions so we have to keep on reminding them and I think that's one of the challenges I think it should be easier for like prime ministers and presidents because I haven't met a single prime minister who would not send their own children to school all of them send their children to school their children go to university they do not need any explanation for how important education is but when it comes to the rest of the world's children then they struggle a bit of how education is important so it's something that you have to keep on reminding them and so we have a lot of students in the room what would your advice be to them how can they help your cause so I started speaking out when I was 11 years old and I had no idea if my voice can have an impact or not but soon I realized that people were listening to me and my voice was reaching to people around the world so change is possible and do not limit yourself do not stop yourself just because you are young and often we think that you have to become prime minister or president or a CEO to be the change maker no you don't you can bring change at any point you want any action that you take is useful that action can have an impact whether it's blogging, whether it's fundraising whether it's raising awareness to social media whether it's doing work in your local community whether it's doing advocacy whether it's doing petitions all these things matter so once we all start doing this we create a global movement and we encourage you to get involved in this movement for girls' right to education for women's rights, for women's equality in this movement for a better life for each and every one of us so you mentioned that when you started the Malala fund you were thinking in one way and now it's well it's grown and five years have passed and what, do you have any regrets is there anything that you would have done differently regrets because this is like what I wanted to do and I and I just stay focused on my plan which was to empower young girls to make sure that as many girls can get quality education as possible and my dream was also to empower local advocates just as my father and I were campaigning in Swarth Valley my vision is to inspire other local activists in their regions and this is coming true as well through the Gulmaka Network so I'm very happy but I think there's always like you can do even more and when you see that there are still 130 million girls out of school it just keeps you moving that you have to keep on working until all girls can go to school did you ever sleep? sleep these days no because you had to get up quite early and I got up quite early today and at university I try to but sometimes you're with your friends and you stay up till late and then in the morning you have early lectures and I have to like walk half an hour to the lectures so sometimes I just can't make it you just can't do it it's hard to get up early in the morning I'm not a morning person I would happily get up at 12 or 1pm sometimes I get up and I say like I didn't see morning today it's 1pm morning is not part of my life I don't know it's a good college experience I'd love to open it up to questions from you guys I'm sure that you have plenty I think that we have translation somewhere if you're not speaking English I'll just repeat the question I see someone is very excited right there good morning everyone my name is Federico and I'm a global shaper from El Salvador and a proud feminist my question for you is what word of advice you hear on the world giving to girls and women that you actually don't agree with or challenge what advice that people give to women that I don't agree with one thing I have heard is like I go to some places and people say that women are told to dress in a certain way whether it's extreme religious or whether it's like the two western kind of views and I think some people think that women are women if women dress in a certain way then that's not their choice or whether it's like it shows too much or it hides too much and I think it's important to realize that this is when you talk about feminism we talk about women, their empowerment and their independence and it should not be the decision of anyone else to tell women how to dress how to speak, how to act how to walk, how to talk as long as it's that women's decision as long as it's her choice it is okay there is not a standard that defines okay women you dress this way, you talk this way then okay it takes all the boxes of feminism or women's rights and this is how you should dress no I think it's we should leave it to women's decision whatever job they want to do how they want to dress, how they want to talk and I think we have to keep pushing for this my name is Alicia I'm a mother of two young girls we live here in Switzerland which is quite a privileged place we love your stories they have your books and senior movies thank you and I asked them if I could ask one question to Malala what should I ask and they said why did you fight so hard to go to school and I think that's a question we probably all know the answer to but how do I explain to to young girls who are in a privileged position first of all why is it so important to go to school and how do we teach them the empathy when they come from such a privileged place so that they can recognize that not everybody is in the same position as them thank you so much and thank you for getting the book it's called Malala's Medic Pencil and what I wanted through this book was to inspire young children that they can bring change they can use their voice their any skill or they have art with its painting or anything they can change the world so girls education was important to me because when I was 11 years old it was January 2009 when the Taliban announced on FM Radio that no girl is allowed to go to school and that was the moment when I realized that education was more than reading books and doing homework it was about the empowerment of women which the extremists realized before anyone else they knew that women get empowered through education they were not against these books and things they were actually against women being empowered women standing equal to men women doing jobs women being independent women making their own decision that was their problem and they knew that women get that when they have education the importance of education which unfortunately many leaders don't and many people don't and that is why they stopped girls from going to school and for me it was shocking because I wanted to become a doctor at that time and I knew that if I don't go to school I won't be able to become a doctor I would stay inside the house because for women to go outside like education is in a way in patriarchal societies it is harder for women to learn for herself if she does not complete her education and can get a good job but also I was thinking that if I don't go to school then it means I would get married at the age of 13 or 14 I would become a mother become a grandmother and just stay inside the four walls of these houses and I would never get the opportunity to be myself to be an individual to be a woman and that is something that I just could not understand so I think it would be important for children to read stories of girls who have struggled for their education and there are many stories out there on Malala fund we share stories of girls who are fighting for the right to go to school so education is really empowerment for women education is a way for them to have their rights thank you you are a great inspiration for me in my work I am from Colombia and I work for an NGO called Colombianitos we use the sport as a tool for social development we educate kids in soft and peace building skills we also have a girl empowerment program for girls who are living surrounded by poverty and also a violence you know some of them are victims of our armed conflict so I just would love for you to give a message for those kids for those girls that they can change to encourage them to study and also to believe that they can change their future well thank you so much for your question and also thank you for all the work that you are doing I think to encourage to girls and to boys and to everyone as always that they should believe in themselves believe in their voice, believe in their actions and they are the future and they are the present so they make up the community and each and every action they take matters it has an impact on the society so they must get involved they must try to help as many children as they can so tomorrow they can also invest that what they have got through education they can invest that in their community and it just grows it just accelerates and multiplies so and I'm sure that you are doing great work and you will be inspiring them already thank you are there any students out there are you a student good morning my name is Camilla and I'm also a student and you are such a role model for so many people and women including myself and I was just wondering do you have a role model thank you so much for your question Camilla my role model has always been my father and when we talk about feminism in men I think he is the example that I can give firstly because he was born and he named me after the Malala of Maywan who was Afghan hero and his vision was that she was the only Pashtun woman who was recognized by her own name we don't have any other Pashtun woman hero we don't know any except Malala so he named me after her and just with the vision that there was a Pashtun woman who was known for her heroism like when his cousin made a family tree and he brought it and it was all men's name and my father wrote my name on a family tree the first girl's name on a family tree and so he was challenging society he was challenging norms he was challenging those taboos at each and every point in his life he was not just speaking or writing an article he was actually doing a feminist who was taking action so if he had not allowed me I would not have been able to be here I would not have been able to speak out there were many girls who wanted to speak out during terrorism in Swat Valley but their parents stopped them many girls wanted to do something but their brothers did not allow them so I'm really grateful to my father that he allowed his daughter to be herself and and also to my mother she is a courageous brave woman who tells both me and my father to continue campaigning for women's rights and girls' education and then all the great people we had in our history from Martin Luther King Jr to Nelson Mandela to Benazir Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Pakistan and many others but also the girls who I meet in camps in schools in the trips I make their stories always stay in my heart and they inspire me to continue my work for education we're running just a little bit over since we started late but I think we probably have time for one more question and somewhere right there so my name is Jerry and obviously you've embraced your own education in both the UK and Pakistan and I was wondering when you began your secondary education in the UK if your approach to learning changed or if you learning has always been the same and will always be the same I think there is a big difference between education in Pakistan compared to the UK and one was that in Pakistan the subjects are science, maths, history Pakistan studies and Islamic studies and Urdu language and in the UK they had subjects like drama like physical education like music and like cooking and I said wow are these even subjects these are considered to be like the extra work which is not, you're not supposed to do them at school so it just opened my mind to what education can actually mean that if you are getting into school it doesn't mean you have to become a doctor or engineer like education is actually learning and just finding out about yourself and if you want to be an athlete if you want to be a musician if you want to be an artist it's your choice you shouldn't be forced to become a doctor or engineer because it's the only good thing to do so it opened my mind in terms of that also I did critical thinking as a subject and I just thought it is amazing like everyone should know critical thinking because especially in the time right now when there's like fake news people should have critical thinking that they know where the information is coming from who is giving this information look at the expertise of the person any vested interest all these things are just crucial crucial crucial crucial and also the teaching environment like in schools they have power points they have computers students have access to iPads and other technology and something that maybe is taken for granted here but in our school we had only a whiteboard in a marker and just books we didn't have access to computer but it is changing now there's technology is going into school but technology can actually help a lot in education digital learning it can help in in e-learning students who can't have access to school maybe it can help those students as well where they can learn online so I have seen a big difference and I think from that what we can learn is that how can we use these resources technology in helping children who are in refugee camps who are in developing countries and need access to quality education we might actually have room for one last one right there hello my name is Anita I'd like to ask my question goes a bit to the question before what can you say about the importance of educating young boys to accept women's equality it is crucial it is so important because at the end of the day when we talk about feminism and women's rights we are actually addressing men we are actually addressing men and we want them to recognize that women should be accepted that women should be women should not be prevented women should not be stopped from a role just because they are women that talent should be appreciated their skills should be appreciated men have a big role to play and again as I mentioned about my father if he was not there and if he had not allowed me to speak I would not have been here and also now I see my brothers they are completely different the views are different they accept their sister being a bit bossy they accept their sister going to school I still hear stories where I see that there is this young brother and all the older sisters he is dominating the family he is telling his sisters how to dress and don't go out and don't do this and cover your hair we have to teach young boys how to be men because that is what you in order to be a man you have to recognize that all women and everyone around you have equal rights as you and that you are also part of this movement for equality thank you thank you guys for all your questions and thank you Malala for joining us it was really wonderful to hear all your thoughts thank you