Malala Yousafzai, the 15-year-old Pakistani student and women’s education activist, returned to the classroom for the first time today since being shot in the head by a member of the Taliban in October. She is starting as a ninth-year student at Edgbaston High School, the oldest independent girls school in Birmingham, England.
On Oct. 9, 2012, Malala was attacked on her way home from school in northwestern Pakistan and had to be flown to a hospital in Britain for special treatment. After undergoing surgery on her skull and receiving cochlear implants, she was discharged in February 2013.
She was a runner up for TIME’s 2012 Person of the Year issue, in which she was recognized as “the world’s most admired children’s rights advocate.” The Taliban’s attack did not silence the teen, but rather, made her a symbol for women’s rights. Aryn Baker, TIME’s Middle East Bureau Chief, wrote: “Her primary cause — securing Pakistani girls’ access to education — has served to highlight broader concerns: the health and safety of the developing world’s children, women’s rights and the fight against extremism.”
Source: Time World
