Since being shot by the Taliban for her dogged insistence on attending school (and talking up its importance), Malala Yousafzai has become one of the world’s best-known campaigners for women’s literacy. Seems she’s got influence at home, too: Her mom has recently learned to read, write and speak some English.
Malala recently appeared at one of the New York Times‘s TimesTalks. She explained that her mother, Tor Pekai Yousafzai, “loves education and she wants to learn,” and she’d grown frustrated with the day-to-day struggles of illiteracy: “She found so many difficulties in her life, in the UK, when she goes to a shop she cannot read the expiry date on a medicine or anything like that. She could not read the prices.” Now she goes to school five days a week, Malala reported, adding cheekily that, “I’m trying to teach her ‘Malala is the best'” in English.
Mrs. Yousafzai, having raised three kids, isn’t fooled.
Check out the video here:
Photo via AP Images.