Malala meets with Nancy Pelosi, US Democratic Leader to campaigns for girls’ education in US Congress
Malala Yousafzai spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill, talking to US lawmakers about her global campaign to promote girls’ education.
The talks focused on spreading universal
secondary education for girls, congressional aides said after some of the
meetings.
Malala, 17, became the youngest-ever Nobel
Prize winner last year but she is still a school student in Britain. Her
campaign managers said she was spending part of her summer break in Washington
to raise funds for the non-profit Malala Fund.
She met Congresswomen Kay Granger and Nita
Lowey, who are known on the Hill as education champions. Ms Granger is a Republican,
Nancy Pelosi and Ms Lowey a Democrat.
Keen to reach across Washington’s political
divide, Malala met a Republican, Mark Kirk, and a Democrat, Richard Durbin, in
the Senate as well.
During the next few days, she will also meet
a group of bipartisan senior women staffers from the House and Senate. Her
father Ziauddin Yousafzai and the president of the Malala Fund, Meighan Stone,
are accompanying her.
The Malala Fund told reporters that the young
Nobel laureate was calling for strengthened US leadership for girls’ education
globally, including increased US contributions for the Global Partnership for
Education.
The GPE is an international organisation
focused on getting all children into school for quality education in the
world’s poorest countries.
Recently, the GPE announced $235 million of
grants to support education in Bangladesh, Mozambique, Nepal and Rwanda.
Malala is also urging US lawmakers to support
additional funding for girls’ secondary education through First Lady Michelle
Obama’s new initiative, “Let Girls Learn”.
More than 60 million girls globally are
denied their right to a quality education due to poverty, violence or
tradition.
The Malala Fund is campaigning for all
countries to guarantee and fund 12 years of free primary and secondary
education for all children by 2030 as part of the Sustainable Development
Goals.
“Girls can be anything they dream. They are
brave and strong but many do not get the opportunity to even go to school,”
Malala said.
“It is time that a bold and clear commitment
is made by the US to increase funding and support governments around the world
to provide 12 years of free primary and secondary education for everyone by
2030.”
She urged governments to “invest in books,
not bullets”, adding that US lawmakers also had a choice to make: either invest
in military and war or in education and hope.
“Without education, it is impossible to
achieve the peace we all seek. Education for all is the only answer,” Malala
said.
She will also meet students, NGOs, leaders,
philanthropists and other advocates during her stay in Washington.
dawn.com
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