Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai visited her hometown, Barkana, in Shangla district, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on Wednesday for the first time since surviving a Taliban attack in 2012.
At the age of 15, Malala was shot in the face by the Pakistani Taliban for advocating girls’ education. Her activism earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, and she has since become a global champion for women’s and girls’ education rights.
Read more: Malala Yousafzai Praises Timothée Chalamet’s Bob Dylan Biopic
Her most recent visit to Pakistan was in January when she spoke at an Islamabad summit on girls’ education in Muslim nations, condemning the Taliban’s treatment of women as “gender apartheid.”
Since October 2012, Malala has been residing in the United Kingdom.
During her visit to Barkana, she reunited with her family, visited her ancestral graveyard, and met her uncle, Ramazan, who had recently undergone heart surgery in Islamabad.
According to Karora Station House Officer (SHO) Amjad Alam Khan, Malala arrived by helicopter alongside her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, and her husband, Aseer Malik, whom she married in 2021.
She also visited the school and college she established in Barkana in 2018, which provides free education to around 1,000 girls in the district, where no functional government girls’ college previously existed.
Malala toured the classrooms, interacted with students, and encouraged them to focus on their studies to build a better future. The Malala Fund has pledged to maintain high education standards at the institution free of charge.
She also visited her maternal family at the home of Faiz Ahmad and spent time with relatives.
Education activist Shahzad Roy, who operates the Shangla Girls School and College under Zindagi Trust, was also present. He briefed Malala on the facilities and progress of the institution.
After her brief visit, Malala returned to Islamabad.
Her first trip to Pakistan since the 2012 attack was in 2018. She later visited in 2022 to assess the damage caused by severe monsoon floods and meet with affected communities.
