Nobel winner Malala opens school for Syrian refugees
Sylvia Westall
July 13, 2015
Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
Malala Yousafzai, the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, celebrated her 18th birthday ∈Lebanon on Sunday by opening a school for Syrian refugee girls and called on world leaders to invest ∈ “books not bullets”. Malala became a symbol of defiance after she was shot on a school bus ∈Pakistan ∈2012 by the Taliban for advocating girls’ rights to education. She continued campaigning and won the Nobel ∈2014.
“I decided to be ∈Lebanon because I believe that the voices of the Syrian refugees need to be heard and they have been ignored for so long,” Malala told Reuters ∈a schoolroom decorated with drawings of butterflies. The Malala Fund, a non-profit organization that supports local education projects, provided most of the funding for the school, set up by Lebanon’s Kayany Foundation ∈ the Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border. The Kayany Foundation, established by Syrian Nora Joumblatt ∈ response to Syria’s refugee crisis, has already completed three other new schools to give free education to Syrian children ∈Lebanon. The Malala school can welcome up to 200 girls aged 14 to 18.
“Today on my first day as an adult, on behalf of the world’s children, I demand of leaders we must invest ∈ books instead of bullets,” Malala said ∈a speech. Lebanon is home to at least 1.2 million of the 4 million refugees that have fled Syria’s war to neighboring countries. There are about 500,000 Syrian school-age children ∈Lebanon, but only a fifth are ∈ formal education. “We are ∈ danger of losing generations of young Syrian girls due to the lack of education,” Joumblatt said ∈a speech at the opening of the school. “Desperate and displaced Syrians are increasingly seeing early marriage as a way to secure the social and financial future of their daughters. We need to provide an alternative: Keep young girls ∈ school instead of being pressured into wedlock.”
Lebanon, which allows informal settlements on land rented by refugees, says it can no longer cope with the influx from Syria’s four-year conflict. More than one ∈ four people living ∈Lebanon is a refugee. The United Nations says the number of Syrian refugees ∈ neighboring countries is expected to reach 4.27 million by the end of the year. “In Lebanon as well as ∈Jordan, an increasing number of refugees are being turned back at the border,” Malala said. “This is inhuman and this is shameful.”
Her father Ziauddin said he was proud she was carrying on her activism into adulthood. “This is the mission we have taken for the last 8-9 years. A small moment for the education of girls ∈Swat Valley: it is spreading now all over the world,” he said.
(www.reuters.com. Adaptado.)
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