Education Activist Malala Raising Awareness For The Forgotten Syrian Children

The girl now known as the world’s youngest and most prominent advocate for girls’ education, Malala Yousafzai, has proved once again that this is an important issue to her, and she is willing to go where others aren’t.

Buoyed by her recovery after being shot in the face by the Taliban for speaking out about education in Pakistan, she has gone on to speak at the United Nations and has become a beacon of hope for many girls in third world countries, and somewhat of a role model for western girls who are looking for a positive influence in the media.

Her latest venture was to travel to the Jordan-Syria border to meet with, and raise awareness for a generation of children who are being forgotten amongst the adults suffering in the midst of a war. She told CNN that the world risks losing these children unless we do something about it.

She went to the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan to meet with the young victims of Syria’s grinding war.

“So many children, they can’t go to school, they cannot get education,” Malala said. UNICEF says more than five million Syrian children are at risk as a result of the war, with over a million children refugees and more than 10,000 killed. That is something more news media should be covering on a daily basis, instead of celebrity gossip. Just sayin…

“I thought that I needed someone to speak for me. And the people of Swat needed someone to speak for them,” Malala said.

“Now, when I think of these children, I can feel what they would be feeling now and what they are suffering through, so that’s why I think that it’s a responsibility to protect these children.”

“We should not think that we are far away from this country and we are safe. We should not think like that.”

The CEO of the Malala Fund, Shiza Shahid said this is a huge crisis and we have a global responsibility to take action.

“With Malala and the team, [we are] hoping to raise a voice of these children and urge the global community to invest in protecting, rehabilitating and educating each child, and through its own resources is also investing in Syrian-led programs to rehabilitate children.”

One of the things Malala wants to see is President Obama visit the Syrian border for himself because once he sees it for himself he will be able to really know what is going on.

“When you see a child, his clothes are dirty he doesn’t have shoes, and you don’t know what his future is, it seems like he is lost in this world. I request not only President Obama but every world leader to go to the Syrian border and see these children.”

Malala’s outlook on the situation is very mature, probably more mature than a lot of adults who are trying to deal with the Syrian situation and don’t even have a care about how it affects the children.

“A child learns every day something new. But if he is living in an environment where he sees violence, where he sees bad people, it has a very bad influence on their child. But if he’s in a different environment, in a healthy environment, in an environment where he can learn, he’s going to school, he has teachers, he is learning how to work in groups and how to work in collaboration with each other, so then it has a good impact on the child’s future.”

How awesome to see this teen girl who has literally fought for her life, now fighting for visibility of these poor children who are forgotten amongst the war. Perhaps she should team up with George Clooney and bring double the awareness to a generation of Syrian children who deserve a bright future.