News: Nigerian charities to get $82,000 from Malala Yousafzai fund following portrait sale in NY

An oil painting of Pakistani schoolgirl and campaigner Malala Yousafzai has been sold for $82,000 at an auction in New York. Malala who turns 17 on the 12th of July was shot in the head in 2012 by the Taliban for campaigning for girls’ education. The artwork by British artist Jonathan Yeo was originally hung in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Proceeds from the sale will go to the Malala Fund charity who said they will forward it to Nigeria. The painting formed part of Yeo’s portraits of well-known figures at the National Portrait Gallery, which also included actors Kevin Spacey and Sienna Miller.
The artist said he wanted the portrait to capture “this extraordinary dichotomy” of someone with “enormous power and wisdom” but also someone who is still very young. He added he depicted the schoolgirl doing homework to reflect the irony that “the simple everyday thing she’s doing was what created the cataclysmic change in her life that nearly killed her”.
The Malala Fund said sale proceeds would be given to Nigerian charities focused on education and advocacy for women and girls in the wake of the kidnapping of more than 250 girls by Nigerian militant group Boko Haram. Last week, Malala said she was “shocked and saddened” when she heard the schoolgirls had been taken; “I am very concerned about these innocent girls – my sisters – whose only crime was going to school and learning. I believe it is our duty to stand together in solidarity with their parents, families and relatives.”