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How Nobel Peace Prize Winner Malala Yousafzai Celebrated Her 18th Birthday

Season 7 Episode 626
Aired on 10/11/2015 | CC tv-14
What does the youngest person to win a Nobel Peace Prize do for her 18th birthday?

Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai has devoted her life to bringing attention to education inequality between the sexes around the world. Shortly after the Taliban, an extremist Islamic group, attempted to kill her, Malala started the Malala Fund to raise millions of dollars for education in places like Nigeria, Pakistan, Kenya and Lebanon. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her efforts.

On her 18th birthday, when most teenagers would be cutting loose with their friends, Malala was opening a school on the Lebanese border for refugees of the Syrian civil war.

"You see girls in their school uniforms, sitting there with books, sitting in the classrooms. ... What else can you do better than this?" Malala tells Oprah in their Super Soul Sunday interview. "You changed a girl's life. You gave her books. So that was, like, the most precious gift I've ever received was the love of those children."

Her charitable work is undeniably moving, but does Malala ever engage in typical 18-year-old activities?

"Well, I do have lots of friends now, and we go out shopping and go to restaurants, enjoy time," Malala says. "And I also like playing cricket and badminton. Also fighting with brothers."

Watch as the young activist details how she spent her milestone birthday.