What I Got Wrong About Changing the World | Malala Yousafzai | TED

0:04 When I was a child, I thought changing the world was simple.

0:09 I would tell the people in charge all of my problems, and they would fix them.

0:15 I know how naive this sounds now,

0:18 but at nine or 10 years old it made sense to me.

0:22 I lived in a remote mountainous region of Pakistan.

0:26 The prime minister was more than 100 miles away from me in the capital city.

0:30 He couldn't see the trash polluting our rivers

0:33 or our broken school bus or hospitals with outdated equipment.

0:38 I was sure that our leaders could solve all

0:42 of these problems if only I could get their attention.

0:48 At age 11, I faced the biggest, most devastating problem of my life.

0:55 The Taliban took control of my town and decreed

0:59 that girls could no longer go to school.

1:03 I knew what life would be like for me without an education.

1:07 Marriage in my teens, two or three children by the time I was just 20.

1:12 It meant I would have no choice, no control of my future.

1:18 If I was ever going to get people's attention, this was the moment.

1:23 I decided to become an activist.

1:26 I gave interviews at protests, I spoke on television,

1:31 I wrote a blog for the BBC and I appeared in a “New York Times” documentary.

1:36 I did everything I could to reach to our leaders and ask for their help.

1:43 Simply for the crime of speaking out, the Taliban tried to kill me,

1:52 shooting me in the face at point-blank range.

1:57 I was 15 years old.

2:01 But with the help of many doctors and even more prayers, I survived.

2:07 Millions of people heard my story.

2:09 Presidents and prime ministers all over the world wanted to meet me.

2:13 I was finally in the rooms where decisions were made,

2:18 and I could bring attention to girls like me

2:21 who did not have the opportunity to be in school.

2:25 And that's when I realized that changing the world

2:29 wasn't as simple as pointing out the problems.

2:33 You had to argue for every policy change and budget increase,

2:37 and you might have to get the support of as many people as possible.

2:41 And you might have to advocate for months

2:44 or even years to take one step forward.

2:49 Eventually, I came to believe that change was slow but steady,

2:57 incremental, but thankfully inevitable.

3:01 My foundation had been hope and optimism.

3:06 Faith that people would do the right thing.

3:10 Trust that when leaders said they cared

3:13 about making our lives better, they meant it.

3:17 Even if it took longer than I wished.

3:22 But then in a single day, my belief in progress shattered.

3:30 It was August 2021.

3:36 I was in the hospital, recovering from one last surgery to repair

3:40 the facial paralysis I suffered after the attack.

3:45 I picked up my phone and saw: The Taliban had taken control of Afghanistan.

3:54 I was stunned.

3:56 Shattered.

3:58 Terrified.

4:00 Angry.

4:02 How could I continue to have faith that things would improve?

4:06 How could anyone believe that leaders were

4:09 committed to girls' education when they handed over

4:12 an entire country to the men who pointed

4:15 a gun at my head and pulled the trigger?

4:22 From the recovery room, I called Afghan women I knew,

4:26 activists who were working around the country.

4:30 They were frightened, too.

4:33 On TV, experts and politicians were saying that the Taliban had changed.

4:39 That this new version of the Taliban

4:41 wouldn't ban girls from school or oppress women.

4:45 The Afghans I spoke with didn't believe it.

4:49 And they were right.

4:52 Today in Afghanistan, girls are not allowed to attend school past sixth grade.

4:59 It is a crime.

5:02 Women, who five years ago were doctors, politicians, engineers and artists,

5:08 are not allowed to go to university or pursue a career.

5:13 A woman speaking in public is a crime.

5:17 But do you know what is not considered a crime?

5:21 This year, in 2026, the Taliban decreed that it

5:27 is legal for men to beat their wives and daughters.

5:33 The Taliban have imposed a system of segregation and domination,

5:39 a gender apartheid on millions of women and girls.

5:46 For years, I thought the purpose of my life was to serve girls.

5:53 After Afghanistan, the optimism I had as an 11-year-old activist was gone.

6:00 But I couldn't walk away.

6:03 Because I knew exactly what Afghan girls were going through.

6:08 When I saw pictures of little girls

6:10 standing outside the locked gates of their schools,

6:13 I could not stop thinking about them.

6:17 I know many of us feel overwhelmed and lost today,

6:23 like the obstacles are too big and there's little we can do to fix the problem.

6:29 But there's a lot I have learned over the past few years,

6:33 and I want to share with you how

6:36 to keep fighting for change when you have lost hope.

6:41 First, you have to start with something.

6:47 While I couldn't undo the catastrophe that had just happened in Afghanistan,

6:51 I knew I had to get out of my hospital bed and find a way to help.

6:57 I started by supporting underground schools because

7:00 the Afghan girls are not giving up on learning,

7:04 even if it means risking their lives.

7:06 Across the country today, they are listening to lessons on the radio,

7:12 discreetly passing cassette tapes and books to each

7:15 other and trying to keep studying in secret.

7:19 It is far from the education that they deserve, but it's a start.

7:26 The second thing I learned is the importance of working with others.

7:32 And that has led me to some unexpected places,

7:35 like movie theaters and football fields.

7:39 I have produced two films about Afghanistan—

7:43 "Bread and Roses" and “Champions of the Golden

7:46 Valley”— stories of Afghan men and women

7:50 who are resisting the Taliban's oppression.

7:53 And I have joined the campaign of [the] Afghan women’s national

7:58 football team to push FIFA to allow them to compete in exile.

8:04 The Taliban are erasing...

8:07 (Applause) The Taliban are erasing women from public life.

8:16 But I am here to do the opposite of what the Taliban want.

8:20 That is why I am taking every opportunity to show Afghan women speaking,

8:27 singing, kicking a ball and standing up for their rights.

8:31 (Applause) Because the artists and athletes that I

8:41 work with help connect the world to the women

8:44 and girls who are living through this crisis

8:46 and to the belief that every life carries equal worth.

8:54 My final lesson: stay ambitious.

9:00 I know it might sound foolish to be

9:02 setting high goals when you are losing a battle.

9:07 But the bigger the fight, the bolder you have to be.

9:13 What is happening in Afghanistan is a wake-up call for all of us.

9:19 Because the Taliban's cruelty against women and girls did not begin in 2021.

9:25 They tried to silence me a decade earlier in Pakistan,

9:29 and before I was even born,

9:32 they were stopping girls from school in parts of Afghanistan.

9:37 Yet we have no international laws against gender apartheid,

9:43 no way to hold the perpetrators and their sympathizers accountable.

9:49 That is why Afghan women are campaigning to add

9:53 these abuses to the UN’s Crimes Against Humanity treaty.

9:59 And I have joined this movement to ensure

10:02 that we change things for women and girls everywhere.

10:06 (Applause) It is a big goal.

10:16 I know it may take many years to see the Taliban brought to justice,

10:21 but I will keep fighting so that these crimes are

10:25 not committed against another generation of girls anywhere in the world.

10:30 (Applause) When I think about the 11-year-old girl I once was,

10:41 I want her to be proud of who I am today.

10:44 I want her to know that although changing the world is

10:48 not as simple as she thought, I will not give up.

10:53 Here is the truth: I don't have all the answers on how to change the world,

10:59 and I don't believe anyone else does either.

11:02 If I have learned anything, it is that progress is never guaranteed.

11:08 There isn't one speech or one story,

11:10 one moment or one person that can bend the arc of history on their own.

11:17 But if we start with something, work together and stay ambitious,

11:24 hope stops being a thing we wait to feel and becomes something we create.

11:29 Thank you.

11:31 (Cheers and applause) Thank you so much.

11:38 Thank you.

11:39 (Applause)