Pakistani education activist and Nobel Peace Price laureate Malala Yousafzai will deliver the 21st Nelson Mandela annual lecture on December 5 in Johannesburg.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation said on Monday the lecture holds special significance as it coincides with the 10th anniversary of Mandela’s death.
“Malala embodies the type of leadership we believe the world needs across all levels of society.
“In the face of global challenges, which can seem daunting, she stands as an inspiring symbol of hope for a just and equitable future,” the foundation’s acting CEO Verne Harris said.
Yousafzai will be the youngest annual lecture speaker.
She became a global symbol of defiance after she was shot on a school bus in October 2012 by the Taliban for advocating girls' rights. She was 12 years old at the time. Masked gunmen stopped a bus taking Yousafzai and other girls home from school and shot her. Two of her friends were wounded.
At the age of 17, in 2014, she became the youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her education advocacy. She also became a global symbol of the resilience of women in the face of repression.
Other notable people who have presented the annual lecture include former American presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, UN secretary-general António Guterres, former president Thabo Mbeki and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
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