I’m feeling honoured that I am being chosen as a Nobel laureate and I have been honoured
with this – this precious award, the Nobel Peace Prize.
And I’m proud that I’m the first Pakistani and the first young woman or the first young
person who is getting this award. It’s a great honour for me.
And I’m also really happy that I’m sharing this award with a person – with a person
from India whose name is Kailash Satyarthi
and his great work for child’s rights, his great work against – against child slavery
totally inspires me and I am really happy that there are so many people who are working
for children’s rights and I’m not alone. And he totally deserved this award. So I am
feeling honoured that I’m sharing this award with him.
He received this award and we both are the two Nobel award receivers, one is from Pakistan,
one is from India, one believes in Hinduism, one strongly believes in Islam.
And it gives a message to people –
it gives a message to people of love between Pakistan and India and between – between
different religions and we both support each other. It does not matter what’s the colour
of your skin, what language do you speak, what religion you believe in.
It is that we should all consider each other as human beings and we should respect each
other and we should all fight for our rights, for the rights of children, for the rights
of women and for the rights of every human being.
First of all, I would like to thank my family, my dear father, my dear mother for their love,
for their support.
As my father always say, he did not give me something extra, but what he did Dad, he did
not clip my wings. So I’m thankful to my father for not clipping my wings, for letting
me to fly and achieve my goals, for showing to the world that a girl is not supposed to
be the slave. A girl has the power to go forward in her life. And she’s not only a mother,
she’s not only a sister, she’s not only a wife. But a girl has the – she should
have an identity. She should be recognised and she has equal rights as a boy. Even though
my brother thinks that they are treated um…um… — that I am treated very well and they are
not treated very well. But that’s fine. If it comes – if it’s that – that’s fine.
Um…I would like to share with you how I found out about the Nobel Peace Prize and
it’s quite exciting because I was in my chemistry class and we were studying about
electrolysis and the time was, I think 10:15. So the time of the announcement of the Nobel
Peace Prize was gone and before that I was not expecting that I would get this award
and when it went to, like, 10:15, I was totally sure that I haven’t won it. But then suddenly
one of my teachers came to the class and she called me and she said, “I have something
important to tell you.” And I was totally surprised when she told me congratulations,
you have won the Nobel Peace Prize and you are sharing it with a – with a great person
who is also working for children’s rights. And I – it’s sometimes quite difficult
to express your feelings, but I felt really honoured.
I felt more powerful and more courageous because this award is not just a piece of metal or
a medal that you would wear, or an award that you would keep in your room, but this is really
an encouragement for me to go forward and to believe in myself. To know that there are
people who are supporting me in this campaign. And we are standing together. We all want
to make sure that every child gets quality education. So this is really — this is really
something – something great for me.