India, Sept. 7 -- I am Malala. I was born on July 12, 1997, as Malala Yousafzai in the Swat District of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. My family was lower-middle class. It was certainly not easy to make both ends meet. My father was an educationist and ran a girls' school in my village; my mother was a housewife; we were three children: I have two younger brothers. The fact is that my parents did not have enough money for a hospital birth for me, and my mother therefore had to give birth to me at home with the help of neighbours. My name "Malala" means "grief-stricken," after Malalai of Maiwand, a famous Pashtun poet and warrior woman from southern Afghanistan.

I am Malala. I believe in education! As a little girl,...