Peace, Education, Equality and Malala Yousafzai
Peace, Education, Equality and Malala Yousafzai
Posted On: Monday, July 15, 2013
“Let us pick up our books and pens; they are our most powerful weapons,” Malala Yousafzai told the United Nations General Assembly on July 12, 2013. Her compelling 17-minute speech advocated for peace, education and equality around the world so that schools and education can be “every child’s bright future.”
What is especially remarkable about her comments, aside from wisdom well beyond her just sixteen years, is that on October 9, 2012, she was shot in the forehead by the Taliban and left for dead. Rather than the Taliban silencing her, she said at the UN, “weakness, fear and hopelessness died. Strength, power and courage were born.”
Malala paid tribute to all those who have fought for their rights: “Their right to live in peace; their right to be treated with dignity; their right to equal opportunity; their right to be educated.”
Her path to activism for education, and for girls and women to have a voice, began long before she was a teenager. Having grown up in an environment of political violence, she knows peace is essential for education.
Extremists, she said, are afraid of books and pens, and also women, change and equality.
Her life experience so far pushing against intolerance is another dramatic illustration that the purpose of intolerance is to silence. It barricades itself and everything it dominates in ignorance. Pens and books are powerful steps in breaking through intolerance.
Her leadership journey is launched, fueled by purpose, resilience and a passion that children be protected from brutality and harm, able to change themselves and the world through free, compulsory education.
Dignity, equal opportunity, education….Malala reminds us, “We cannot all succeed if half of us are held back.”
Gael O’Brien is a catalyst for leaders leading with purpose and impact. She is an executive coach with a corporate and public affairs background. Gael is President of Strategic Opportunities Group.
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I had the great fortune of working with Gael O’Brien as I prepared to give a Ted Talk…. Her positive reinforcement, combined with gentle redirection, allowed me to bring forth a story that even I didn’t know I could tell. The lessons she taught me ….will be carried into my career for many years to come. Importantly, Gael was committed to taking the journey with me to ensure that I put forth my very best self.