Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai reportedly donating $50,000 to Gaza schools
17-year-old to channel award funds through UN to repair institutions damaged during Operation Protective Edge.
By JPOST.COM STAFF, REUTERSNobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan speaks at the World's Children's Prize ceremony in Mariefred, Sweden(photo credit: REUTERS)
Malala Yousafzai, the 17-year-old Noble Peace Prize laureate, announced that she will donate $50,000 to rebuild UN schools in Gaza that was damaged during Operation Protective Edge, NBC News reported Wednesday.According to the report, she is slated give the United Nations Relief and Works Agency the full amount of funds awarded to her by the World's Children's Prize."Innocent Palestinian children have suffered terribly and for too long," Yousafzai was quoted as saying while accepting the prize in Sweden. "We must all work to ensure Palestinian boys and girls, and all children everywhere, receive a quality education in a safe environment. Because without education, there will never be peace."Yousafzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 for advocating girls' right to education, became the youngest Nobel Prize winner earlier in October.Yousafzai was attacked in 2012 on a school bus in the Swat Valley in northwest Pakistan by masked gunmen as a punishment for a blog that she started writing for the BBC's Urdu service as an 11-year-old to campaign against the Taliban's efforts to deny women an education.Unable to return to Pakistan after her recovery, Yousafzai moved to Britain, setting up the Malala Fund and supporting local education advocacy groups with a focus on Pakistan, Nigeria, Jordan, Syria and Kenya.The prize, worth about $1.1 million, will be presented in Oslo on December 10, the anniversary of the death of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, who founded the award in his 1895 will.
