She was born in the Swat district of Pakistans northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.She was named Malala (meaning grief-stricken) after an Afghanistani poet and Warrior woman.Malala was educated mostly by her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, who is an educational activist himself, running a chain of schools known as the Khushal Public School.In an interview, she revealed that she wanted to become a doctor, though later she changed her mind to become a politician; specifically the Prime Minister of Pakistan.She is very close to her father. Her father often talks about politics with her when her two brothers are sent to bed.She first spoke about education rights in September 2008 when her father took her to the local Press Club in Peshawar. In a speech covered by television and newspapers of the region, Malala asked her audience- How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?.In 2008, a journalist, Aamer Ahmed Khan, of the BBC Urdu website, and his colleagues decided to cover the growing influence of the Taliban over the Swat Valley. Their correspondent, Abdul Hai Kakar, had been in touch with Malalas father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, to ask a schoolgirl for blogging anonymously about her life there. At first, a girl named Aisha agreed to write a diary; however, her parents stopped her as they feared Taliban reprisals. Later, Malala agreed to blog for the BBC.In 2009, she engaged as a peer educator in the Institute for War and Peace Reportings Open Minds Pakistan youth program.She posted her first entry to the BBC Urdu Blog on 3 January 2009. It was a hand-written note, which was scanned and e-mailed by a reporter.Her blogs were published under the byline Gul Makai (which means cornflower in Urdu).