Malala Yousafzai To Speak In Redondo Beach

REDONDO BEACH, CA — Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Prize winner in history and a global advocate for female education, will speak to a sold-out crowd May 19 at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center.

Yousafzai also has talks scheduled next week in Beverly Hills, Long Beach, Thousand Oaks, and Pasadena.

Yousafzai, 24, received a Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 when she was 18 years old. She was born in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, where a branch of the Taliban banned girl’s schools. In 2009, when she was 11, she began a blog under a pseudonym for BBC Urdu detailing her life trying to attend school under the Taliban occupation. She was featured in a New York Times documentary, and began giving interviews around the world.

In October 2012, she and two other girls were shot by Taliban gunman in an assassination attempt. The assassination attempt made her a global celebrity, and in 2013, her memoir “I Am Malala” was an international bestseller. She has since written two other books, and started her own foundation to help girls and refugees.

In addition to receiving the Nobel Prize, Yousafzai was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people three years in a row. Pakistani Prime Minister Shadiq Khaqan Abbasi called her the country’s “most prominent citizen.”

She completed her high school education in Birmingham, England, and graduated from Oxford University in 2020.

The Redondo Performing Arts Center will host a number of influential speakers through the Distinguished Speaker Series of Southern California, including former U.S. President George W. Bush in September and former British Prime Minister David Cameron in October.