Feel for every child not just yours, Malala tells leaders

new york - Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani education advocate, on Friday asked world leaders at the UN General Assembly to promise that every child will have the right to safe, free and quality primary and secondary education.
Malala Yousafzai made the remarks as she was speaking at the UN General Assembly alongside 193 youth representatives from the 193 UN member states, reported Xinhua.
Also on Friday, world leaders adopted the Sustainable Development Goals in the General Assembly, which include the global efforts to improve education opportunities for every child in the world.
"World leaders sitting there, look up because the future generation is raising their voice," Malala, who was shot in 2012 by the Taleban for attending classes, told hundreds of senior government officials in a stirring address delivered from the highest mezzanine of the General Assembly Hall.
"Today, we are 193 young people representing billions more. Each lantern we hold represents the hope we have for our future because of the commitments you have made to the global goals," she said as each young person on the scene held up a blue light.
"The dreams (the world leaders) have for their own children, I'm hopeful they will have the same dreams for the rest of the world's children. ... The rest of the world's children also deserve the right to go to school," Malala told in a phone interview.
"If you want our future to be more powerful, to be enlightened, to be bright, we need to invest in education, which does not require as much money as we think - just $39 billion, which we spend just in eight days on (the) military," she said.
Malala, who celebrated her 18th birthday in July in Lebanon by opening a school for Syrian refugee girls, said she would also highlight the plight of refugee children as Europe faces the largest wave of refugees and migrants since World War Two. "It really makes me sad; so I'm hopeful that world leaders will really think about finding a solution to all these problems and ensuring that people go back to their homes," she said.
She urged world leaders to do more on Syria, saying that the drowning of a toddler showed the world had "lost humanity."
She remained haunted by the picture of Aylan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler whose body washed up on a Turkish beach in an image that became emblematic of the risky exodus of refugees seeking safety in Europe. "We lost humanity on that day when... nowhere a child is welcomed". "It is important that people open their hearts and people open their lands to people who are now needing more support and who need the right to live," she said. "I'm hopeful that we all in the UN will be united in the goal of education and peace, and that we will make this world not just a better place, but the best place to live. Education is hope, education is peace," Malala said.
At a Press conference following the event, she was joined by girl ambassadors from Syria, Nigeria and Pakistan who echoed her call to world leaders to ensure that every child gets 12 years of safe, free and quality education.
"The world leaders need to take all these issues more seriously," Malala told reporters. "They need to give it full attention and they should think about their own children. No one leader would want their own daughter, their own son, to be neglected of education, to be neglected in society and not given full rights."
"It's really tragic what's happening to children around the world, especially in Syria, in Iraq, and how they're suffering. It's shocking," she said. - Agencies
Malala noted how difficult it is for her to watch the news about those conflict-torn areas because every time she does, it makes her cry that no one is taking action while children die and girls continue to be sexually abused.
"I'm hopeful that when girls like us come together and raise our voices, the voices of those girls will be listened to because we speak on their behalf, we speak for their rights," she said.
Malala's first visit to the UN took place on July 12, 2013, which coincided with her 16th birthday. The date is now marked internationally as Malala Day.

• Pakistan