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Desert Island Discs

Malala Yousafzai, activist

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 14 February 2021

⏱️ 36 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Malala Yousafzai is an activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when she was 17 - becoming the youngest winner in its history. Today she is known globally for her human rights advocacy and her ongoing campaign to ensure all children have equal access to education. She was born in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan where her father Ziauddin was a prominent activist who believed boys and girls should sit side by side in the classroom and co-founded a school which Malala attended. After the Taliban began to establish its presence in the Valley, day-to-day life became synonymous with danger and fear – people were taken from their homes and killed for speaking out against the regime. Education for girls was forbidden and schools were shut down or bombed. In 2009 Malala began writing an anonymous blog for BBC Urdu in which she spoke out about what was happening in Swat Valley. This made her a target. In 2012 she was shot by a Taliban gunman as she sat on the school bus. Two girls sitting alongside her were also shot. What Malala calls ‘the incident’ generated headlines around the world. Her injuries were severe and she was airlifted to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. After a long and painful recovery she settled in Birmingham with her family. Now 23, Malala graduated from the University of Oxford last year and continues to campaign globally for girls’ education through the Malala Fund which she co-founded with her father. DISC ONE: Rang by Rahat Fateh Ali Khan & Amjad Sabri DISC TWO: Shinwari Lawangeena by Zarsanga DISC THREE: Never Say Never by Justin Bieber DISC FOUR: Hum Dekhen Ge by Iqbal Bano DISC FIVE: All I Ask of You by Sarah Brightman and Steve Barton DISC SIX: Kaari Kaari by Qurat Ul Ain Balouch DISC SEVEN: Love Always Comes as a Surprise by Peter Asher DISC EIGHT: Bibi Sherina by Sardar Ali Takkar BOOK CHOICE: Plato: Complete Works LUXURY ITEM: Lip balm CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Hum Dekhen Ge by Iqbal Bano Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley

Transcript

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0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:04.9

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Desert Island Disks Podcast.

0:08.8

Every week I ask my guests to choose the 8 tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take

0:13.3

with them if they were cast away to a desert island.

0:16.7

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

0:20.9

I hope you enjoy listening.

0:43.3

My cast away this week is the activist Malala Yusufzai.

0:47.1

A status is such that she requires no surname, let alone an introduction, but for tradition's

0:52.2

sake, here goes.

0:53.8

She's the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history, and she jokes the only recipient of the

0:58.0

Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers.

1:01.1

She was already a prominent campaigner for girls education in her home country of Pakistan

1:05.4

when, nine years ago, a Taliban gunman boarded her school bus and shot her.

1:10.4

She was 15.

1:12.0

Who is Malala, he asked before he opened fire?

1:14.7

At 23, she's still standing up and telling the world who she is and how that's changing.

1:20.6

Today, she's an Oxford graduate as well as a Nobel laureate, a best-selling author and

1:25.6

co-founder, along with her father, of the Malala Fund, which campaigns for girls education

1:30.6

around the world.

1:31.8

In 2017, the UN designated April 10th Malala Day in honour of her birthday.

1:38.1

She says, since I was 10 years old, the principle of my life has been to stand on the right

1:42.6

side of history and to ensure that we fulfill our responsibility to make this world a better

...

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