Author: Amanda Viviers

A book and a pen can be used as a weapon in the hand of someone who harnesses its power.

I remember day after day, month after month the disillusionment I felt in going to school day after day. I also remember the day I looked back at my university education and regretted not taking it more seriously.

It is only now, in my thirties that I understand the importance of a library. The brilliance of a teacher that engages in their students life. The sacrifices of my parents so that I could go to a private school, when they gave me opportunities that they never had.

Knowledge brings power.

Education is not a right, it is a privilege.

Educating our girls, our women and our sisters brings change and opportunity to the darkest of places.

Over the last month I have been reading I am Malala. It hasn’t been an easy read, but it has been a provoking one. Each page I read, the more I am empowered with knowledge about the privilege of the age that we live in.

I stare at the piles of books in my room realising they are such a privilege. Going to school, going to university is not a compulsory obligation, it is a gift that not every person receives.

There are girls in Pakistan, who want desperately to learn, but they are denied the opportunity. There are women in Iraq, who are illiterate and would give anything to learn to read. There are people in our own neighbourhoods, who so wanted an education, but were stopped.

As I write. As I sit here today at my computer. There are women who dream of being able to just read. Anything. Something. To understand.

“Let us pick up our books and our pens,” I said. “They are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world.” 

Malala Yousafzai

Lately, I have been so frustrated by the small conflicts that find their way into our everyday western lives. The inconveniences of daily life in an age where we have every opportunity available to us. The conversations that seem so selfish, when I reflect upon the lives of girls, who are shot on their way to school. Women who are unable to show their faces. Girls who are relegated to hidden lives in kitchens, bedrooms and places removed from any perspective or opportunity to explore knowledge in freedom.

This has been grieving my heart. The conversations of the west. The obsessions we have with our events and our churches, our bars, our clubs, our hair, our clothes, our instagram feeds. The lack of perspective, in how amazingly blessed we are.

Perspective gained over the last while of reading this tenacious souls little journey.

This book has changed me.

If you would like to read this book, click the link and book depository will send it to you without any postage costs; I am Malala