NEWCASTLE TYNE: The picture shows Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai welcoming her friend Syrian fellow schoolgirl activist Muzoon Almellehan to her new home in rainy northern England on Tuesday, nearly two years after they had met in a dust-blown refugee camp in Jordan. Reuniting at a gleaming public library in the northeast English city of Newcastle, 18-year-old Malala and Muzoon, 17, pledged to campaign together for access to education for Syrian refugee children.

The setting was a far cry from the sprawling lines of tents comprising the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in the Jordanian desert, where the two had first met in early 2014. Malala now lives in England’s second city and Muzoon, called Syrian Malala, is among the first Syrians from refugee camps in the Middle East to have come to Britain.

Published in Dawn, December 23rd, 2015