We Are Displaced: My Journey and Stories from Refugee Girls Around the World

Malala begins WE ARE DISPLACED with her own story. When she was 11, she began writing an anonymous blog about life in the Taliban-controlled Swat Valley of Pakistan and speaking out for girls' right to an education. The Taliban responded four years later by shooting and almost killing her. Continuing to live in Pakistan proved too dangerous for her family and they were resettled in Great Britain, where they still live. In her travels around the world as an advocate for girls' education, Malala met with and heard the stories of countless girls. In We are Displaced, nine of them share their stories. When sisters Zaynab and Sabreen fled the civil war in Yemen to stay with family in Egypt, they assumed they'd travel on together to the United States and be reunited with their mother. But while Zainab was granted a visa, her sister's was denied for reasons never explained. As Zaynab built a new life for herself in Minneapolis, Sabreen became desperate, finally becoming one of the thousands who attempt to reach Europe in small overcrowded boats. After living under siege in war-torn Syria for two years, Muzoon and her family left everything behind and made their way to a refugee camp in Jordan. Najla and Maria are both still displaced within their own countries -- Najla in Iraq and Maria in Columbia. Analisa made the perilous journey from Guatemala, across Mexico and then across the border into Texas, only to be caught by Border Patrol agents. Marie Claire spent the first four years of her life on the run in the bush before her family escaped from Democratic Republic of Congo, only to find themselves unwanted as refugees in Zambia. Ajida and her family traveled nine days through the Myanmar jungle before reaching a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Farah (now CEO of the Malala Fund) and her family were forced to leave Uganda when she was 2, after the government gave all citizens of Asian descent 90 days to leave the country. The sole non-refugee story comes from Jennifer, a married mother of two teenagers, who (along with her family) volunteered to work with refugees newly arrived in Pennsylvania. Their first "match" was with Marie Claire and her family, and that story has a very happy ending.