Screening: He Named Me Malala + Panel Discussion

This screening will be followed by a discussion with Philippa Lei, Director of Policy and Advocacy for the Malala Fund; BBC Radio 4 Today correspondent Sima Kotecha; author Gulwali Passarlay; and Elin Martinez, Researcher in the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

He Named Me Malala is an intimate portrait of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Malala Yousafzai, who was targeted by the Taliban and severely wounded by a gunshot when returning home on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. The then 15-year-old was singled out, along with her father, for advocating for girls’ education, and the attack on her sparked an outcry from supporters around the world. She miraculously survived and is now a leading campaigner for girls’ education globally as co-founder of the Malala Fund.

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, Waiting for Superman) shows us how Malala, her father Zia and her family are committed to fighting for education for all girls worldwide. The film gives us an inside glimpse into this extraordinary young girl’s life – from her close relationship with her father who inspired her love for education, to her impassioned speeches at the UN, to her everyday life with her parents and brothers.

The release of He Named Me Malala coincided with a 12-month social action and advocacy campaign – #withMalala. Through audience engagement with global and in-country calls to action, the campaign aims to raise mass awareness, funding, and policy change by activating millions of people worldwide as newfound champions for girls’ education globally.

Sima Kotecha (moderator) is a British television and radio journalist working for the BBC. She currently is a multimedia reporter for BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme and makes regular appearances on the main BBC News TV bulletins as a reporter. She also presents the BBC1 TV news bulletin at 8pm and has presented Radio 5Live’s Up All Night and Newsday on the BBC World Service.

Gulwali Passarlay is an Afghan political refugee currently reading politics and international relations at the University of Manchester. He has appeared on the BBC, Channel 4 News and TEDx.

Philippa Lei is Director of Policy and Advocacy at Malala Fund. Philippa studied NGOs and International Development at LSE after spending 3 years in Romania working with children orphaned by AIDS. She held senior positions at World Vision and Save the Children before joining Malala Fund and has published papers and worked extensively on child rights policy, lobbying and programming related to international development.

Elin Martinez joined Human Rights Watch in July 2014, as a Researcher in the Children’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, focused on the right to secondary education. She previously worked for the Global Partnership for Education’s Secretariat in Washington, as well as Save the Children UK, where she led the organization’s global advocacy efforts on the right to education in humanitarian emergencies and armed conflict.
Prior to focusing on global education advocacy, she worked at Franciscans International, a faith-based international NGO. Focused on human rights issues in the Asia Pacific, she worked with grassroots human rights defenders and advocacy organizations to develop national human rights advocacy strategies and to increase accountability for human rights violations through UN human rights bodies. You can follow her work on twitter via @Martinez_Elin or by visiting: https://goo.gl/V9m0jW

https://www.withmalala.org/
Directed by: Davis Guggenheim
Country: UK
Year: 2015
Runtime: 88′