Imagine for a second that you’re a twelve-year-old girl growing up in an area of Pakistan where the Taliban has banned girls from attending school. Your family manages schools in the region, and you start a blog, writing under a pseudonym for the BBC about life under Taliban occupation and your belief in education for girls. The New York Times makes a documentary about your life, and Desmond Tutu nominates you for the International Children’s Peace Prize.

Then, when you’re 16 years old, as you’re boarding your school bus, a gunman asks for your name, and click—a bullet hits the left side of your forehead, travels down your face, and into your shoulder. You’re unconscious, in critical condition, and flown to Queen Elizabeth Hospital in England. Your assassination attempt sparks international attention and support. United Nations Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown launches a UN petition in your name. It demands that all children throughout the world be in school by the end of 2015. You make Time magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World” issues in 2013, 2014, and 2015. In 2014, at 17 years old, you become the youngest Nobel Prize laureate…

It’s hard to believe. It almost reads like fiction. How can one person make such a big difference? Malala Yousafzai did. She was one triumphant girl who inspired her community and eventually the entire world. When I read her words, I wonder how we can be so far removed in this country. I don’t think that means we can’t have goals and dreams as individuals. I just think we cannot forget about each other in the process. We are and always will be one of many.