After Malala: Shiza Shahid’s plan to change the world for good
When Malala Yousafzai was shot by the Taliban, her family turned to another extraordinary young woman from Pakistan, Shiza Shahid. Now the former CEO of the Malala Fund has a new mission, investing in ‘the greatest solutions to the world’s greatest challenges’
Seven summers ago, CNN ran a short news clip about a holiday camp that had been organised for 26 girls in Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. They’d come from the Taliban-controlled Swat valley, about five hours, and several centuries, remote from life in the capital. By then, girls had been forbidden by the Taliban from going to school; they were, said the (male) reporter, “living witnesses to the central battle within Islam today”. The idea behind the camp was to build their confidence, give them access to new mentors and stimulate possibilities in their increasingly restricted lives.
Two of those involved were interviewed, the younger barely out of childhood. She said that one day she wanted to rule the country, “but in a good way”. She was 12. (The disbelieving reporter says, “How old are you again?” She laughs and replies, cheekily, “OK – I’m 35!”) Because of concerns for the girls’ safety, no questions about the Taliban were allowed and no one was identified. But that merry child was Malala Yousafzai, who, three years later, would be shot on a school bus. Then everyone would learn her name.
The other interviewee was Shiza Shahid, who was 20, Islamabad born and bred but studying at Stanford University, in California, in the United States. The camp was her idea; it was she who’d told CNN there could be no questions about the Taliban. She likes to play that clip at talks (although, as she says, the fact that the reporter described them as “disorganised” is still a source of embarrassment) and she showed it when she spoke in front of audiences in Hong Kong late last month.
SHAHID HAD BEEN BROUGHT to the city by Quintessentially, which offers “luxury lifestyle management and concierge services” to its strictly limited membership. Its chief executive in Hong Kong is Emma Sherrard Matthew, who heard Shahid speak in Los Angeles in April (“I was blown away – I’m very interested in what she’s doing and I’ve personally invested”) and arranged her trip. The Landmark Mandarin Oriental, in Central, is hosting her stay and the first of our two meetings takes place in the hotel’s MO Bar. It feels some distance from the valleys of northern Pakistan.