TEEN HEROES: MALALA YOUSAFZAI

Hi everyone, welcome back to our blog! I'm Giorgia R. and today I would like to talk about Malala Yousafzai, a female education activist who stood up to the Talibans, survived an assassination attempt and became the youngest  person ever to win a Nobel Peace Prize.

But What about her life? What did she do to make a change in the world?

Malala was born in the Swat  region of Pakistan, where she grew up. Her  parents were determined to give her every opportunity a son would have, starting with an  EDUCATION.  But then, in 2007, Swat Valley, one of Pakistan’s most beautiful regions, was taken over by the Talibans. Life under the Talibans was difficult and women were discouraged from getting an education.  Malala’s father, an educator who ran a number of private schools for girls, attempted to educate girls under the radar.  Later the Talibans officially banned girls from going to school. In  2009 Malala started  blogging for the BBC under a pen-name, chronicling her life under  the Taliban  regime.  The  New York Times made a short documentary about  her and  she publicy campaigned  for girls  to go to school. But this put  Malala in the limelight sparking the Talibans to target her.  In 2012 she was shot in the head and shoulder.

TEEN HEROES - JAZZ JENNINGS

Hi guys, we all know that to be free and happy we have to be ourselves but for someone it’s not always that easy! Because for somebody being him/herself can mean to go against society.

This is the case of Jazz Jennings a young transsexual woman.

I’m going to use only female pronouns even when telling you about when she was a biologiacal man because in my opinion you can be whatever you feel even if it doesn’t match the gender you were born!!!

She was born on the 6th of October 2000 in south Florida and when she was about five years old she already knew she was a girl and not a boy so she told  her family that she was a transgender girl and luckily they always supported her. We all know that families do not always accept and support that kind of things but fortunately she was born in a family with open-minded opinions and that’s very rare for a Florida family, because that’s a state known to be a conservative one.

TEEN HEROES - AMIKA GEORGE

Teens…what an interesting species we are! We go from having thousands of “friends” on social medias to break down on why we don’t have many actual friends in real life; from being completely apathetic to cry on puppies’ videos on twitter; from laying down in bed for hours staring at the roof thinking about all the responsibilities we avoided during the day to actually doing something to change the world.

Amika George is an incredible example of what teens are capable of.