Malala Yousafzai to be honoured with Harvard Leadership Award

CAMBRIDGE: Nobel prize winner Malala Yousafzai will receive the 2018 Gleitsman Award from the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School.

Yousafzai, a girls’ education activist, is being honoured with the award for her global movement to equip girls with 12 years of free, quality and safe education.

The award will be handed over to Yousafzai, 21, at a public ceremony at Harvard Kennedy School on December 6, 2018.

“Malala speaks powerfully to the strength and perseverance of women and girls who are oppressed,” David Gergen, professor of public service at Harvard Kennedy School and director of the Center for Public Leadership said.

He added, “Her remarkable story has inspired girls — and boys as well — to follow in her footsteps and has activated a generation of practitioners and legislators who are fighting for equality in their own communities.”

Gergen continued, "Alan Gleitsman, whose philanthropy made this award possible, believed in individuals whose vision inspired others to confront injustice."

“He was an ardent supporter of Harvard Kennedy School’s efforts to cultivate the world’s youngest change makers and would be so pleased by today’s announcement,” the professor added.

At the age of seventeen, Malala had become the youngest Nobel laureate, owing to her efforts for children’s rights in 2014.

Yousafzai’s struggle went globally recognized after she had survived a head shot at point-blank range by Taliban gunmen as she was returning from her school in Swat Valley— a region unsafe for girls' education during the time of incident.