The goal of the Malala Fund is to provide Malala Yousafzai with a fund she can direct so when she is well and ready, she can pursue her vision for girls education and empowerment.
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This undated photo released by Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, shows Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year-old girl who was shot at close range in the head by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan, as she continues her recovery at a hospital in Birmingham, England. Her father Ziauddin Yousufzai spoke on behalf of Malala, thanking people from around the world for their inspiring and humbling support, speaking exactly a month after she was targeted as she traveled home with classmates on a school bus. Malala was flown to Britain for specialist treatment at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital after escaping death by inches when a bullet "grazed" her brain last month. (AP Photo/Queen Elizabeth Hospital) NO SALES
This undated photo released by Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, shows Malala Yousufzai, the 15-year-old girl who was shot at close range in the head by a Taliban gunman in Pakistan, as she continues her recovery at a hospital in Birmingham, England. Her father Ziauddin Yousufzai spoke on behalf of Malala, thanking people from around the world for their inspiring and humbling support, speaking exactly a month after she was targeted as she traveled home with classmates on a school bus. Malala was flown to Britain for specialist treatment at Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital after escaping death by inches when a bullet "grazed" her brain last month. (AP Photo/Queen Elizabeth Hospital) NO SALES

I'm blogging to let people know that a broad group of individuals and organization from many parts of the world have come together to create the "MalalaFund" on behalf of Malala Yousafzai. Our goal is to provide Malala with a fund she can direct so when she is well and ready, she can pursue her vision for girls education and empowerment. Vital Voices, the women's and girls global leadership NGO, stepped up to host the fund and many people have made themselves available to help with any advice, strategy or help with any and all aspects of the fund -- including the outreach we are starting today to raise initial funds.

Some background on how this came together:

Our group came together over the past few weeks since that shocking day October 9th when Malala was shot by the Taliban for simply wanting education and pushing for all girls and boys to have access to education. We are from around the world, so we worked through email threads and conference calls where initially the focus was on how to get some funds to help the family directly right away. A group of volunteers at Harvard Kennedy School and some wonderful diaspora family friends worked quickly to create an Indigogo site that raised funds for the family directly, while some organizations like VDay and others granted directly.

Since that family support funding work was moving ahead, we therefore turned our focus, based on some great coaching of the various non-profit leaders involved in our discussions, to the creation of a fund in Malala's honor that she and her father/family could be leaders in directing the use of to make impact on girls education and empowerment in Pakistan and around the world. You can read more about the group and the work on MalalaFund.org in the about advisors and friends section.

Launch of Malala Fund today on Nov 10 - Malala Day

As we coordinated with the UN Education Envoy team lead by UN Education Envoy Gordon Brown we learned the kind of fund we had in mind was an idea Malala herself spoke about recently --- in the call for "Malala Day" on the iamMalala.org site you can read "...that just a few weeks before her shooting she told her friends that her aim was to set up the Malala Foundation to campaign for the 32 million girls round the world who are not at school."

We honor that wish with the launch of the Malala Fund today at MalalaFund.org -- Vital Voices is hosting the fund so that we could setup quickly and we thank them for that support. UN Foundation GirlUp is also supporting the set-up of the fund.

On behalf of our global team of individuals and supporting organizations -- please support the fund by donating at www.MalalaFund.org or in the US texting "BRAVE" to 27722 to donate $10.

We hope people will:

TAKE ACTION

1. LEARN MORE malalafund.org

2. DONATE

1. web/mobile via malalafund.org and follow donate links

2. text in U.S. text "BRAVE" to 27722 to donate $10

3. SIGN PETITION on the education envoy site (iammalala.org)

4. SEND LETTER to MALALA through GirlUp.org

5. SPREAD THE WORD

Malala Yousafzai is all of our daughter, like Iqbal Masih who was all of our son. We stand together as a world community to make it clear to those who would deny these fundamental rights for our children, all children, that we do not tolerate these actions and will will diligently work together globally to make education universally available for all children everywhere.

Thank you for any support you can offer. Please donate, share and work towards Malala's vision wherever you live -- if you need more information visit MalalaFund.org or contact us at malalafund@vitalvoices.org -- and if you have creative and innovative ideas we should know about for the fund, please email at malalafund@vitalvoices.org.

On behalf of our whole team,

Megan J. Smith

Entrepreneur, VP Google[x]

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