With the objective to educate more than 100,000 girls around the world, Apple has on Monday joined hands with Malala Fund, the nonprofit organization of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, the company said on Monday.
“The partnership with Yousafzai’s Malala Fund would expand financing programs to India and Latin America and offer secondary education to 100,000 girls,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said, adding, “The collaboration would also double the number of grants offered by the organization’s Gulmakai Network, which supports programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey and Nigeria.”
As part of the agreement, Tim Cook will join the Malala Fund’s leadership council.
With this new initiative, Apple said it will help Yousafzai’s fund with technology, curriculum and policy research to reduce the barriers for girls attending school.
“We believe that education is a great equalizing force, and we share Malala Fund’s commitment to give every girl an opportunity to go to school,” Cook said, adding, “Malala is a courageous advocate for equality. She’s one of the most inspiring figures of our time, and we are honoured to help her extend the important work she is doing to empower girls around the world.”
Now a student at Oxford University, Yousafzai’s prime objective of establishing Malala Fund was to ensure that girls around the world have access to 12 years of education.
“My dream is for every girl to choose her own future,” Yousafzai said, adding, “Through both their innovations and philanthropy, Apple has helped educate and empower people around the world. I am grateful that Apple knows the value of investing in girls and is joining Malala Fund in the fight to ensure all girls can learn and lead without fear.”
All set to speak at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 25, 2018, Yousafzai was in 2012 shot in the head by a Taliban group for defending girls’ right to receive education.
According to a 2016 report by the UNESCO, an estimated 130 million girls around the world are out of school.
