Education advocate Malala Yousafzai will be the featured guest at a town-hall-style discussion hosted by Doha Debates on March 28 focusing on ensuring Afghan girls and young women receive the quality education they deserve. Afghan and Qatari students from Education City universities will be among the invitation-only participants in the hour-long conversation with Yousafzai, which will be streamed live via the social media channels for Doha Debates, a member of Qatar Foundation, at 6pm Doha time from Qatar National Library.
The event will be moderated by award-winning Doha Debates correspondent Nelufar Hedayat, an Afghan-British journalist who fled war-torn Afghanistan with her family in the late 1980s. Using the social media hashtag #MalalaTownHall, Doha Debates’ Twitter, Facebook and YouTube channels will livestream in English, and a livestream will be provided on YouTube with simultaneous interpretation in Arabic and Pashto.
Yousafzai is the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate, the co-founder and board chair of the Malala Fund – which has empowered educators and advocates in Afghanistan and around the world – and a United Nations Messenger of Peace.
A Pakistani, Yousafzai, has close ties to Afghans and Afghanistan, it was explained in a Doha Debates statement yesterday. After surviving a 2012 attempt on her life by the Taliban, she has dedicated her life to fighting for every girl’s right to access 12 years of free, safe, quality education through the Malala Fund.
"Since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan last year, girls and women have faced severe restrictions on their rights to work, study and participate as active members of society. The Afghan Taliban have not yet fully delivered on their commitment to uphold Afghan girls and women’s rights, including their right to education.
"Yousafzai has since teamed up with two Afghan women’s rights activists, Zarqa Yaftali and Shaharzad Akbar, to lead a global call for petition signatures demanding that the Taliban and world leaders “defend Afghan girls’ rights to learn and lead.” The petition has thus far garnered more than 1.2 million signatures," the statement added.
