Malala sets to speak at U.N., meet Ban Ki-moon on Friday

Malala Yousafzai, who was critically injured in a Taliban attack, will speak at the U.N. General Assembly on education on Friday.

Taliban defending attack on Malala over what they claimed her remarks against Islamic injunctions. In one of her blogs for the BBC Urdu she had offered some controversial remarks about beard and Islamic veil.

Two other girls — Kainat and Shazia — were also wounded. The UK has offered them education.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will have a meeting with the young Pakistani education campaigner during her visit to the world body’s headquarters this week, his spokesman says.

“Malala Yousufzai will meet with the Secretary-General and address the United Nations membership at the General Assembly,” Spokesman Martin Nesirky said.

She will be joined by about 650 youth in urging governments to help children who are not enrolled in school.

According to experts, about 57 million children cannot go to primary school, while about one-third of girls worldwide are denied education.

Malala was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of the year in May. She was also on one of the seven special edition covers released by the magazine. 

In April, the UN chief spoke to Malala by Skype to mark the 1,000-day milestone in the run up to a Millennium Development goal to reduce poverty by the end of 2015.

During the conversation from Madrid, where the secretary-general was on a visit, he described the 15-year-old who was attacked by the Taliban for opposing restrictions on going to school as “a symbol of hope, a daughter of the United Nations,” according to the U.N.

“The UN will always be with you and the many people like you,” he told Malala. She responded by volunteering herself to work for the rights of girls and the rights of all people, the UN said.

When we work together we can achieve our goal and our goal is simple: peace and happiness in this world. The way to see peace is through education. It is an honour for me to be associated with the UN. I want to tell the world how important education is, Malala told the secretary-general.

She added that she wants to be a leader and “to serve this whole world.” 

“I can walk. I can talk. I can do anything” Malala told the secretary-general. If we educate a woman, we educate a family, a community and a country.”

Ban told the youngster that he was “deeply impressed” and looked forward to meeting her.

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Posted by Tahir Khan on Jul 11 2013. Filed under Education, Latest News, National, Pakistan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.