We Are Displaced summary

By the time Malala was eleven, the Taliban had begun a campaign of terror in the Swat Valley. They cut electricity, bombed schools and police stations and killed those who spoke out against them.

As 2008 drew to a close, the Taliban ordered that all girls’ schools be shut down; any that stayed open would be subject to attack. For Malala, it was a catastrophe. She knew that without an education her future would be drastically limited.

In 2015, American director Davis Guggenheim made a documentary about Malala’s life, He Named Me Malala. When it came out, Malala went on tour with it. After showing the film, she’d talk to the young people who attended and ask them to talk about their experiences. That’s how, on a stop in Minneapolis, she met Zaynab.

Zaynab and her sister Sabreen were born in Yemen. They were raised by their grandmother after their mother emigrated to the United States when they were still children. But in 2010, when Zaynab was 14 years old and Sabreen was 12, their lives were changed by terrible luck. First, their grandmother suffered a fall and died soon after. Meanwhile, Yemen became increasingly unstable as the government, revolutionaries and terrorist groups all vied for control. By 2012, seemingly indiscriminate bombings had become common.

Being a refugee doesn’t mean being powerless – people can sometimes make change even in the direst of situations. A great example of this is Muzoon, who Malala met when she visited the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. A member of UNICEF introduced them; Muzoon was well-known in the camp for her education advocacy, and it was clear that she and Malala would be kindred spirits.

Muzoon grew up in Syria where she had high hopes for education and her future. But then war swallowed up her country in 2011, and the streets were filled with bombings and gunshots. Soon, schools closed down. After two years of living in the middle of this violence, Muzoon’s family decided to flee.

Najla was raised in Sinjar, Iraq, in a large family from the Yazidi religious minority. Like many children, she hungered for education from the time she was very young. But what made Najla unique is how hard she was willing to fight for it.

It started when she was eight. Najla’s father had to be convinced to allow her to go to school, as he and her mother didn’t think that educating their daughters was important. When she finally did go, school was so full of revelations that it made her feel like she was seeing the world for the first time.

In Colombia, civil conflict has been raging for more than 40 years, leaving 7.2 million people displaced. María is one of these people.

Raised on a farm in rural Colombia, María knew a childhood filled with space to run and play and the company of animals like chickens and pigs. Fresh mangoes and oranges were always at hand from trees in the family garden.

Malala often devotes time after speeches to hearing the stories of the refugees present in the audience. One story that lingered in her mind for a long time was that of Marie Claire, whom she met after speaking in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

When Marie Claire was just a baby, war broke out in her homeland of the Democratic Republic of Congo, forcing her family to flee for their lives. They became undocumented refugees in neighboring Zambia, but life there was hard and cruel, as refugees faced hostility everywhere.

The Rohingya people are Muslims living mainly in western Myanmar, bordering Bangladesh. This makes them a minority religious group in a primarily Buddhist country, and because of this, they’ve been persecuted since the 1960s.

Bangladesh’s first refugee camp for the Rohingya was set up in 1990, in an inhospitable area where monsoons and floods are common. Despite this, more than 900,000 people live there today.