Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to visit Mahama refugee camp tomorrow

Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who became the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, will visit Rwanda on Thursday, sources confirmed yesterday. Malala will be visiting Mahama refugee camp in the Eastern Province, home to thousands of Burundian refugees, to highlight the needs of refugees. This is part of her advocacy tour of refugee camps in Africa under the auspices of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) from July 10-13. The visit started in Kenya, where on July 12– which was her 19th birthday– she marked UN-designated Malala Day in Dadaab Somalis refugee camp. “Afterwards, she requested to travel to Rwanda to visit a Burundian refugee camp. Malala would be leading a delegation of 12-15 people, including her father, Malala Fund staff, and accompanying media,” reads a concept note from the UNHCR. Malala is a Pakistani activist for female education known mainly for her advocacy for education and for women in her native Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban banned girls from attending school. She rose to international prominence in 2012, when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman for her criticism of the Taliban and advocacy of girls’ education. Her advocacy work has since grown into an international movement. She celebrated her birthday last year by opening a girls’ school for Syrian refugees in Lebanon. The 2013, 2014 and 2015 issues of Time magazine featured Malala as one of “The 100 Most Influential People in the World”. Aged 17 at the time, she became the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate. She was the subject of Oscar-shortlisted 2015 documentary, He Named Me Malala. With particular focus on the importance of access to education for refugees, Malala’s visit to Mahama camp intends to express solidarity with Burundian refugees in Rwanda; acknowledge the efforts of the Government 0f Rwanda, UNHCR and partners for the protection and support of refugees in Rwanda; and highlight challenges Burundian refugees face in addition to bringing attention to the situation in Burundi. July 12 was declared “Malala Day” by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in 2013 to coincide with her birthday. In 2013, she delivered a speech at the UN calling for worldwide access to education. In that speech, Malala said that Malala Day is “not my day,” but the “day of every woman, every boy and every girl who have raised a voice for their rights.” Since then, she has spent every birthday campaigning for girls’ education around the world, traveling to areas where girls face the greatest barriers to education. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai to visit Mahama refugee camp tomorrow