LONDON, Feb 4: Malala Yousufzai, who was shot in the head by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education, said she was “getting better day by day” in her first public statement released on Monday.

The 15-year-old said she had been given a “second life” to campaign for girls to have the right to go to school, in a video statement recorded before she underwent surgery to repair her skull at a hospital in Britain on Saturday.

“Today you can see that I am alive. I can speak, I can see you, I can see everyone and I am getting better day by day,” she said.

She spoke clearly in English, but displayed a lack of movement on the left side of her face.

She said: “It’s just because of the prayers of people. Because all people — men, women, children — all of them have prayed for me.

“And because of all these prayers God has given me this new life — a second life. And I want to serve. I want to serve the people. I want every girl, every child, to be educated. For that reason, we have organised the Malala Fund.”

The Malala Fund is a charity set up in late 2012 to promote education for girls.In the video, Malala is wearing a headscarf and flicking through some of the cards sent to her by wellwishers. She also recorded a message in Urdu.

In the surgery at Queen Elizabeth Hospital this weekend, Malala had a custom-made piece of titanium fitted to replace the missing part of her skull and surgeons also inserted an implant to help restore her hearing in her left ear.

Neurosurgeon Anwen White said that Malala did not need any more operations, would now continue with her rehabilitation and “hopefully she’ll be discharged fairly soon.”

Asked if there was any damage to Malala’s brain, Dr White said: “She hasn’t got any long-lasting cognitive problems. There was a brain injury at the time of the wound but she’s healing very well.”—AFP