The father of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani girl shot by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, has been named a UN special advisor on global education, UN envoy Gordon Brown said on Monday.
Brown added that the 15-year-old schoolgirl, who is recovering in a British hospital after being brutally attacked on her school bus on October 9, will herself join the campaign when she is better.
Ziauddin Yousafzai, Malala’s father, is a former teacher and headmaster and has been appointed to help in what Brown has dubbed a new “Malala Plan” to get all girls into school around the world by the end of 2015.
Brown is also pushing for Malala’s birthday, July 12th, to be designated a day of action each year when children around the world are invited to march, demonstrate, petition and pray for education to be delivered worldwide.
“Before she was shot, Malala was advocating the cause of girls’ education faced by a Taliban that had closed down and destroyed 600 schools,” said the former British prime minister, now UN special envoy for global education.
“If the Taliban sought to vanquish her voice once and for all, they failed.