Nobel laureate and film producer Malala Yousafzai announced her arrival in Lahore on Tuesday amid reports that she will hold meetings with a number of stakeholders in the education sector along with advocates from the Malala Fund Education Champion Network.
"That wonderful feeling of arriving back home in Pakistan never gets old," she wrote on Twitter.
Along with her father, she will also join an academic delegation from the Oxford Pakistan Programme and the Malala Fund team across a series of events in an effort to increase awareness within Pakistan with focus on science education for girls in the country.
Nobel Laureate Malala Yousufzai arrives in Pakistan to visit flood-hit regions
Malala and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai founded the Malala Fund in 2013 to promote girls' right to 12 years of free, safe, quality education. It is currently collaborating with the Ministry of Federal Education in order to implement a programme to reform 13,000 government high schools across Pakistan.
During the trip, Malala will also draw attention to her work with the OPP, an initiative led by her alma mater.
The OPP initiative aims to bridge Oxford and Pakistan’s academic communities, including a newly established fellowship with Malala Fund, Lady Margaret Hall, the OPP and Oxford’s Department of Education. The Malala Visiting Fellowship in Education will facilitate teacher training courses in Pakistan to address the shortage of trained teachers, especially women.
In Lahore, Malala and Ziauddin are also scheduled to meet with Punjab Chief Minister Parvez Elahi in order to discuss education efforts and work of the Malala Fund in Pakistan.
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The youngest-ever Nobel laureate was in town in October, where she met with young women and families from flood-impacted communities in Sindh and called on the international community to increase aid to Pakistan, according to a press release issued at the time.
During the trip, Malala announced the Malala Fund’s commitment to pledge Rs154 million ($700,000) to organisations in Pakistan for flood relief efforts, stating: “The scale of the destruction is astounding and the psychosocial and economic impact on the lives of people, especially women and girls cannot be overstated,” said Malala. “Millions of Pakistanis are suffering the consequences of climate inaction. World leaders must step up, accelerate their response plans and mobilise funds needed to help Pakistan rebuild and support impacted populations.”