On October 9th, the Taliban fighters came onto a school bus in Pakistan and shot 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai, an activist fighting for girls' education in Pakistan. She remains in a military hospital in critical condition. As awful as the event was, there is a silver lining: The shooting brought together a global community dedicated to righting the wrongs done to girls in countries like Pakistan.
Malala was targeted because she pushed for the education of girls in Pakistan. In 2009, the Taliban were driven out of the Swat Valley, Malala's region, by a Pakistani military operation. That same year, Malala published a blog through the British Broadcasting Corporation, going into the details of life under Taliban control.

Her main complaint? When the Taliban took over her region, they burned down schools for girls and denied girls the right to an education. To the Taliban, she became the embodiment of resistance.
The Taliban claimed Malala was promoting Western ideals, yet Malala is not Western: She is a Pakistani girl who took it upon herself to fight for her rights as a woman. The fact that the Taliban were so threatened by her that they tried to kill her proves that they believe female education is a powerful and, to them, dangerous thing.

Educated women are incredibly powerful. According to a recent article in Slate, "Studies suggest that educating girls is about the closest thing we have to a silver-bullet solution for countries suffering from poverty, instability, and general inequity."

The Taliban were threatened by Malala because she represented a change, a refusal to accept the conditions of the Taliban's regime. And more threatening to the Taliban, she was speaking to the global community about those struggles. Malala's attempts to bring the challenges she was facing to the global forum threatened the Taliban almost as much as the right she was struggling to protect. It is through poverty, instability and inequity that groups such as the Taliban are able to grasp and maintain power.

The importance of this fight is not new to me. In my senior year of high school, I was vice-president of my school's chapter of Girls Learn International, an organization focused on the rights and needs of girls across the world, particularly in countries that deny them many of the essentials.
We were asked to raise $500 for a school in Pakistan, which taught Pakistani girls just like Malala. We held bake sales every week, determined to provide the funding for a school so unlike ours.
And while we felt good knowing we were making a difference, I know that our work raising money is nothing without grassroots activists on the ground. We may have felt we were working hard to create a just world, but we were nothing compared to Malala.

Without the bravery of people like her, simple fundraising efforts do nothing. The cause of female education is one that must be homegrown.

The effort cannot work without brave souls who, like Malala, risk their lives to bring attention to issues such as education and women's rights.

People like Malala are exactly the kind of thing the world needs to bring countries like Pakistan out of poverty and to bring basic human rights to girls across the world. And while the violence is atrocious, the good thing is that the world stood up and took notice. From the European Union headquarters in Brussels, to social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook, to Pakistan itself, newfound attention is being paid to this important issue.

But it has also shown the seemingly insurmountable obstacles such activists face in trying to accomplish their goals. While I felt good about the money I raised for school supplies, my $500 is petty change compared to the massive amount of support needed for those like Malala.
The global community's attention is necessary because it can provide that support for on-the-ground activists, combining it with international pressure on the Pakistani government. But a global movement is nothing without grassroots organization in Pakistan.

Malala is the symbol of hope for the future, not just because of the cause she stood for, but because the news of her tragedy can now be the catalyst for action to ensure that activists like her succeed. And while girls like Malala fight for their education, they are giving the world the education it needs on what is truly important.
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