Malala Yousafzai awarded Hay Festival Medal for Education
The women’s rights campaigner and youngest-ever Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai has been awarded the Medal for Education at Hay Festival.
In recognition of her career to champion young girls’ education, Malala is the first recipient of a Hay Festival Medal 2026 with more to be announced throughout the Festival.
Malala Yousafzai is a Pakistani women’s education activist, best-selling author and award-winning film producer.
In 2012, she became the most famous teenager in the world when she was shot by the Taliban, and as an adult, she’s one of the most famous activists of our time.
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She received the medal after her conversation with Anna Foster about her book Finding My Way: A Personal Memoir.
Malala discussed being thrust onto the public stage, the struggle to find her place and how she eventually came to understand that she could be unapologetically who she wants to be.
Hay Festival CEO Julie Finch say: “It is an enormous privilege to award Malala Yousafzai our Medal for Education on the opening weekend of Hay Festival during our Programme for Schools’ days.
“Through her fearless commitment of girls’ education, Malala reminds us of our shared responsibility to ensure all young people have access to education to fulfil their potential in life.”
Awarded annually since Britain’s Olympic year in 2012, Hay Festival Medals draw inspiration from the original Olympic medal given for poetry. With Athena as muse, silversmith Christopher Hamilton crafts the owl-themed medal locally.
Previous medal recipients include Ruth Jones (Drama 2025); Michael Morpurgo (Fiction 2025); Elif Shafak (Fiction 2025); Lemn Sissay (Poetry 2024); Judi Dench (Drama 2024); Salman Rushdie (Prose 2023) and Lyse Doucet (Journalism 2022).
Hay Festival runs its 39th spring edition in Hay-on-Wye, Wales, with more than 600 events over 11 days, 21 – 31 May 2026.
Launching new fiction and non-fiction books, while sharing insights around global issues, the programme sees more than 600 artists, policymakers, pioneers and innovators take part from around the world.
A series of new initiatives and fresh programming strands feature across the programme:
• My Life in Books events see celebrities open their personal libraries
• Heard at Hay Festival panels spark thought-provoking debates
• The Pleasure List campaign celebrates the joys of reading
• New genre days spotlight bestselling fiction
• Barrel of Laughs sessions spotlight funny people with new books
Alongside the best new fiction and non-fiction, the changing world is drawn into focus with commentary from leading politicians, economists, historians and scientists, while journalists and commentators will reflect on the UK’s recent local elections.
Free to enter, the Festival’s Dairy Meadows site in the Bannau Brycheiniog National Park also offers a range of spaces for audiences to explore and enjoy between events, including the Bookshop, BBC Marquee, Wild Garden, Make & Take Hub, a range of exhibitors and market stalls, cafés, and the Family Garden.
Discover the full programme and find tickets through the Hay Festival’s site.
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