Malala Yousafzai marked her 18th birthday in Lebanon Sunday, attending the opening an all-girls school near the Syrian border.
The education advocate and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate said she was “honored” to spend her birthday with the “brave and inspiring girls of Syria,” as she presided over the opening of the Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School in the Bekaa Valley.
The facility will provide quality secondary education to more than 200 Syrian girls living in informal camps in the Bekaa Valley region, according to a statement released after the event.
The Malala Fund, which is financing the project, also announced a new grant of $250,000 in support to UNICEF and UNHCR, to meet the funding shortfall for girls’ school programming in Jordan’s Azraq refugee camp.
In Lebanon, the Malala Fund is providing funding to local partner NGO the KAYANY Foundation to provide baccalaureate and life skills training to 200 Syrian refugee girls ages 14 to 18.
