The Interview12 Okt 2025

Malala Yousafzai, global education campaigner: I did not know who I was

I was 15 years old and I did not know who I was

Madina Maishanu speaks to Malala Yousafzai, the global education activist, about the public life that has defined her, and her search for her own identity.

In a deeply personal interview, Malala Yousafzai reveals the legacy of her teenage years - as the spirited girl who took on the Taliban and nearly lost her life, then the Nobel Prize-winning advocate for girls everywhere to go to school. People think they know you, she says, but I did not know who I was.

Now, aged 28, she reveals the lasting impact on her mental health and how she’s been helped by therapy and by friendship, putting the loneliness of her teens behind her.

For Malala Yousafzai, the mission of her life remains ensuring every girl has the right to go to school, a goal that has driven her since she was a child growing up in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Critical of the ruling Taliban, she survived an assassination attempt at their hands before fleeing to England to continue her education, ultimately at Oxford University.

Thank you to Madina Maishanu and Yousef Eldin for their help in making this programme. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC. You can listen on the BBC World Service, Mondays and Wednesdays at 0700 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out twice a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presenter: Madina Maishanu Producers: Yousef Eldin, Lucy Sheppard and Farhana Haider Editor: Justine Lang

Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media

(Image: Malala Yousafzai Photo by Gareth Cattermole/Getty Images for IMDb)

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