Imagine a place where just over half of the girls make it to primary school. Imagine a place where only 12% of girls make it to high school. Imagine a place where girls are married off by their parents when they are just twelve years old, are married off by their parents, and become mothers while they are still children. This is the world Malala Yousafzai was born into. In Pakistan, Malala's home country, there are more than twenty-five thousand children who do not go to school, making illiteracy an epidemic. This means that in the next generation there will be more than sixty million children growing up with illiterate mothers (Wariach). Malala is among these children. She was born into a family with a mother who was unable to read, although some say her father more than made up for it. Ziauddin Yousafzai, a prominent man from the Swat district where Malala grew up, was also an outstanding scholar. For a long time before Malala's birth, Ziauddin had dreamed of opening a school, and shortly before her arrival, he had made that dream a reality. He opened the Khushal School, a school where both girls and boys would be equally welcome to receive an education. The effect of this was that Malala was practically raised in a school (Yousafzai). He played in class and when he was two years old he was in classes with ten year olds (Baker). She was also incredibly aware that not everyone was as lucky as her to have an education, and from an early age she wanted to do something to change (Yousafzai). Malala was later gifted with the ability to excel and seized it, making enormous contributions in the fields of education, feminism and peace. At first glance, most people don't recognize the name Malala Yousafzai. Many, however, will recognize "the girl who was hit in the head and survived". Malala is widely known