Malala’s Newest Campaign: Supporting Women’s Sports

Malala Yousafzai is using her platform to elevate a new cause – women’s sports.

She’s doing so through a new investment firm, Recess Capital, which launched this week to bring more funding to a mix of women’s sports leagues – the National Women’s Soccer League and WNBA are both of interest to her – and youth sports initiatives. Her husband, Asser Malik, is a co-founder, and prominent sports figures like tennis star Billie Jean King are on board to advise and further the mission.

In an interview with CNN, Yousafzai said the move is about both creating opportunities and promoting unity. “I think about young people and how their lives are at risk, how children are killed, they’re starved, and girls’ rights are taken away in Afghanistan,” she said. “Just looking at the tensions around the world, we can only hope and pray for peace, and encourage everybody to put down their weapons and think about the hope for humanity.”

She continued: “We are capable of dialogue, we are capable of coming together – and sports … have proven to be that powerful way of bringing communities together.”

Yousafzai recalled gaining an early awareness of inequities in access to sports for girls and women, when she watched her male classmates leave to play cricket during recess as a child while she and the other girls were forced to stay behind. Then again, access to educational opportunities has always been at the heart of the 27-year-old Pakistani activist’s work. 

In 2012, when she was just 15, Yousafzai and two fellow schoolmates were shot by a Taliban gunman while they rode the bus home from an exam, an assassination attempt made on her for being outspoken in support of education access for all. She survived the attack, and doubled down on her work as soon as she was able.

She launched the Malala Fund, a nonprofit that promoted educational chances around the world, in 2013. Her efforts earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, when she was 17 years old – making her the youngest person ever to win it. And she hasn’t stopped fighting since.

Now, she’s bringing that fire to helping women’s sports continue to grow. “It’s empowering girls. It’s sending a powerful message to women, to all of us, that the sky’s the limit, and women’s sports will thrive,” she said. “We will have more equal opportunities for women and girls and we can imagine a world where girls are empowered.”