In many parts of the world, especially Pakistan and Afghanistan, terrorism, war and conflict stop children to go to their schools. We are really tired of these wars. Women and children are suffering.

We are human behind and this part of our human nature that we don't learn the importance of anything until it's snatched from our hands. In Pakistan, when we were stopped from going to school, and that time I realized that education is very important, and education is the power for women. And that's why the terrorists are afraid of education. They do not want women to get education because then women will become more powerful.

My father used to say the people of Swat and the teachers would continue to educate our children until the last room, the last teacher and the last student was alive. My parents never once suggested I should withdraw from school, ever. Though we loved school, we hadn't realized how important education was until the Taliban tried to stop us.

I am proud to be a girl, and I know that girls can change the world.

I said to myself, Malala, you must be brave. You must not be afraid of anyone. You are only trying to get an education. You are not committing a crime.

Education is the best weapon through which we can fight poverty, ignorance and terrorism.

I think of it often and imagine the scene clearly. Even if they come to kill me, I will tell them what they are trying to do is wrong, that education is our basic right.