Malkam Alem

Ethiopian educator and women's rights advocate who pioneered girls' education in rural areas

Malkam Alem (born 1965) is a visionary educator and social reformer from Ethiopia who has dedicated her life to expanding access to education for girls in rural regions. Growing up in a nomadic Afar community, she witnessed firsthand the systemic barriers preventing girls from attending school. In 1992, she founded the Afar Girls Initiative, which has since established over 150 schools across Ethiopia's eastern regions. Her innovative approach includes mobile classrooms and partnerships with local leaders to address cultural resistance through dialogue rather than confrontation. Alem's work has directly impacted over 50,000 girls, with 80% of her graduates continuing to secondary education. Her advocacy led to Ethiopia's 2003 Girls' Education Policy, which became a model for African nations. In 2015, she launched the Malkam Education Foundation, which now operates in Kenya and South Sudan. Her TED Talk "Educating Girls in Ethiopia's Most Isolated Areas" has over 1.2 million views, highlighting her global influence. Alem's approach combines traditional knowledge with modern pedagogy, recently developing a solar-powered learning system for remote areas.