February 4, 2013
Dear Friend of the Women in the World Foundation,
I want to share with you this important message from Tina Brown and Angelina Jolie
The world is thrilled this morning to finally catch a glimpse of Malala Yousafzai, who is recovering well from a five-hour operation in Britain. Yousafzai said she is feeling well and "eager to serve," announcing the formation of a new Malala fund to support girls' education.
We are touched and heartened by Malala's recovery, as well as the donations pouring in to endow a Women in the World fund in her honor used exclusively to educate girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan. When she was only 10, this amazing girl accompanied her father to a press club in Peshawar and declared: “How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?” Now people are echoing her all over the world by joining the cause.
In today’s video, Malala announces the formation of a Malala Fund created by Vital Voices, the international nonprofit that trains women leaders. Malala herself will help direct the use of these joint funds. To reinforce Malala's efforts for girls’ education, we are donating the Women in the World Foundation funds raised to date to the Malala Fund.
The donors who have generously contributed $150,000 to the Women in the World fund for girls' education are a coalition of kindness—high school students in Memphis, children in the Dominican Republic, grandparents who wanted Malala, and girls like her, to have the opportunities of their own grandchildren. We thank every one of you and ask you to keep up the efforts.
The annual Women in the World Summit in New York City on April 4 and 5 will include a salute to brave women and girls like Malala, young women like her risking their lives every single day just to get an education for girls. There is no better time than now for the world to join us in saying, “I am here for Malala.”
I personally want to thank everyone who has given so generously to the fund set up by the Women in the World Foundation in honor of Malala Yousafzai. We were all so touched by the high school girls in Memphis who sold bracelets to raise money for the fund and created their own video to show how Malala has inspired them; the school girls in the Dominican Republic who donated the money they’d collected for a school trip—and raised awareness by making stickers that said “Yo Soy Malala” (“I Am Malala”); the donors who gave in honor of a sister, a mother, a daughter or a granddaughter. There are so many of you.
Those donations will help to sustain all those working for girls' education in Pakistan and Afghanistan. So far more than $150,000 has been raised through the Women in the World Foundation for this vital cause—including $50,000 from Angelina Jolie’s Education Partnership for Children of Conflict .
If you would like to contribute to the Women in the World Foundation to fund additional programs for girls' education, please donate here.
Kim Azzarelli
President, Women in the World Foundation