Malala Yousafzai, the 16-year-old campaigner, is taking her GCSEs right now. However, she’s still got time to continue her hard work to make sure that no other girl has to live in fear of having her education taken away. (The Taliban shot Malala in the head in her home of Swat, Pakistan in 2012, simply because she was on her way to school.)
This time, Malala’s donating the proceeds of Jonathan Yeo’s portrait of her to Nigerian charities which promote education and advocacy for girls and women. The painting is expected to raise $60,000 to $80,000 (£35,600 to $47,470) at the auction and was donated by Mr Yeo to the Malala Fund, so this is a significant move.
He said in a statement, reported by NBC News: ‘I hope the painting reflects the slight paradox of someone with enormous power yet vulnerability and youth at the same time.’
It’s not the first time Malala has publically voiced her concern over the harrowing story of over 200 schoolgirls being kidnapped from their Christian school in the north-east of the country by Boko Haram, a mish-mash of a terrorist group with one unifying goal – to bring about Sharia law under which they can ban women from receiving an education.
The group has threatened to sell the girls into sex slavery, and earlier this week released a video of about 100 of the girls now in hijabs (Boko Haram say they have converted) to prove that they might be alive.
As the UK and US send in military drones and experts to assist Nigerian authorities in their much-delayed search for the girls, Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau has said that they would be happy to trade the girls for the release of members of their sect who have been imprisoned.
Malala Yousafzai has previously condemned the mass kidnap and has explained why it’s important for everyone to be aware of what’s happening. ‘I am very concerned about these innocent girls – my sisters – whose only crime was going to school and learning,’ she has said. ‘If we remain silent then this will spread, this will happen more and more and more.’
The painting will be auctioned at Christie’s in New York today.
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This article originally appeared on The Debrief.