Book Review: We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafazi and Liz Welch

Book Review: We Are Displaced by Malala Yousafazi and Liz Welch

Quote: So when I dream of home, I dream of mangoes I can pick off the trees.i dream of quiet and grass. I dream of peace. And nobody can take that away from me. - Maria

Everyone knows Malala's story. The girl who opposed the Taliban with her pen. She is the symbol of girl empowerment, she like many who have preceded her and many who will follow her, knows education is the only way for women to have her say in this world.

Malala has focused on the biggest Humanitarian crisis after Global Warning, Refugees. Documenting eleven stories of eleven women she met around the world.

Migration is a reality, it happening and it has always been happening. Sometimes migration is a voluntary process and other times it's a decision made out of desperation to survive.

The most vulnerable to violence are women and children, in a world where resources are imbalanced and equality is a scarce commodity between men and women, the threat of sexual-physical-mental harm always looms over the psyche.

The story of sisters Zaynab and Sabreen who fled Yemen's civil war left me worried. Muzoon from Syria who advocates education over early marriage in camps echoes my concern. Rebellious Najla's story of escaping the Yazidi genocide was heart-rending. Maria and Analisa present the other side of the refugee story that is happening right now in Latin America.

Marie who saw her mother get persecuted in front of her eyes in Zambia, survived xenophobia, and overcame educational disparity with her determination, to become the first graduate in her family!

Ajida, a Rohingya mother of three, regrets she couldn't shield the eyes of her daughters from looking at the mutilated bodies on their long walk, is sad.

Jennifer's story is equally important, Aylan Kurdi's photograph shook her up. And she decided to help re-home refugees who came to the U.S. She was the first person to help Maria and her family in the U.S.

Farah's parents fled Idi Amin's rule. Though they raised her as a Canadian, her parents never discussed their flight to a refuge.

Each story is written with emotional clarity. Writing about the exodus each took to get to a safe space is courageous and scary. The book can be read by humans of all ages, and it should be. I loved the epilogue of the book where Malala asks us to aware ourselves first and foremost.