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Malala Yousafzai

Most of us in the UK grow up taking education for granted. Malala Yousafzai is a reminder that for many girls around the world, going to school is not guaranteed, and that the right to learn can still be something you have to fight for.

Malala is a Pakistani education activist who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban for defending girls’ right to go to school. She went on to become the youngest-ever Nobel Prize laureate, using her global platform to continue advocating for women’s rights and education for all. Her courageous refusal to be silenced is a powerful example of how a single, determined voice can stand against injustice.

Why we chose Malala

Malala was chosen through a staff competition to rename our main conference room. We received six excellent nominations. They were all inspiring people with stories worth telling, but Malala emerged as the clear winner in the voting. (A close contender was Grunya Sukhareva, another remarkable figure whose story we hope to share in the future.)

The conference room is our most used and most visible room. It’s where we run training sessions, deliver workshops, and welcome commissioners and partner organisations. Naming it after Malala makes a statement about what we value: education, equality, courage, and the determination to keep speaking when others would rather you stayed silent.

Beth MacDonald, one of two colleagues who nominated Malala, explained why her choice felt so personal to her:

Malala felt like the obvious and most appropriate choice for me when thinking of a name for one of our most used rooms.

Malala and I are similar ages, and I grew up watching this inspirational woman make huge, inspiring change from such a young age. I had just left high school when the news broke about Malala back in 2012. I couldn’t possibly imagine being in this young woman’s position; being so strong in what you believe in, and advocating for your peers, for one of the most important things in the world: education. Here was me, taking it for granted having just finished my GCSEs.

Fighting for justice has always been something I’m passionate about, but Malala showed me that activism can make real change, both on a small scale and worldwide. She continues to inspire people from all walks of life today, and she will inspire us every day at work. The Malala Yousafzai room is a very fitting name for the space we use for training, education and workshops, and we hope it inspires our volunteers and clients too.

You can learn more about Malala in her two memoirs, 2013’s I Am Malala and her new book, Finding My Way. Malala was also the subject of a 2015 Oscar-shortlisted documentary film, He Named Me Malala and the official trailer is a great two-minute introduction to her story.

How Malala can inspire us

At Advonet, our work is rooted in rights. We support people to be heard, to be treated fairly, and to have real choices and control in their lives. Malala’s story is a powerful reminder that rights are not “nice ideas”: they are practical, sometimes contested, and often depend on ordinary people having the courage to insist on them.

Her focus on education also connects naturally with what happens in this room. We use it to teach, learn, and share skills, including how to make information accessible, and how to remove barriers that stop people participating fully in decisions that affect them. In that sense, Malala’s name above the door is more than symbolic: it’s a daily prompt to take empowerment seriously, and to keep the door open for those who are too often excluded.

The Inspiring Change Portraits

Our image of Malala is one of a collection of eight portraits created by CHANGE’s illustrator team to celebrate inspiring figures who champion change and whose actions embody Advonet’s values of kindness, inclusivity, accountability, diversity, and empowerment.

The portraits in this series use elements of the clear, friendly illustration style we use in our Easy Read documents. Here we explain the advantages of using illustrations for our clients and their audiences: Why CHANGE uses illustrations to create accessible Easy Read documents

Greetings cards featuring all eight images in a boxed set are available from our web shop.