This week I’m going to write about the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner – Malala Yousafzai, a determined activist for female education in her native Swat Valley in Northwest Pakistan, where the local Taliban had at times banned girls from attending school.

Malala was born on 12th July 1997, the eldest of 3 children.  She was educated mostly by her father Ziauddin, a poet, school owner, and an educational activist himself, running a chain of private schools.  She once stated to an interviewer that she would like to become a doctor, although later her father encouraged her to become a politician instead.  He would allow her to stay up late and talk about politics after her two brothers had been sent to bed.

In September 2008 her father took her to Peshawar to speak at the local press club.  In a speech covered by newspapers and TV she stated ‘How dare the…