A person doesn't need money, power or status to be able to make a positive impact on the world.
When 17-year-old Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize last week, she accomplished far more than an award. She exposed how ordinary people of any age can do extraordinary things, and demonstrated that society as a whole gravitates to positivity despite cynical precedents set by traditional media.
National religion reporter for The Huffington Post Jaweed Kaleem, as well as Heather Dune Macadam and Simon Worrall, co-authors of Regular People Who Changed The World, joined HuffPost Live host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani today to discuss just how important it is for people to hear stories like Malala's. They also talked about the importance of recognizing the thousands of others who may not make it into the nightly news who help make the world a better place.
"There is so much bad happening, and those are all very real stories and very important ones," Kaleem said. "But to have Malala, a teenager, a girl in a country where gender issues and gender disparities are very real, and to have a woman who's not from a high-power family -- not a rich figurehead, not a legacy politician or anything, just a smart, intelligent young girl with the support of her family -- to rise up and become an international figure for girls rights everywhere, especially in Pakistan, that's a huge deal."
However, one cannot overlook the fact that the reason Malala made international news originally was because she was brutally attacked by the Taliban.
"The tragedy for Malala was being shot, and of course that's when the media picks up the story," Dune Macadam said. "Really there are so many people that are doing wonderful things, but the media doesn't pick it up because there's so many other things to be reported on. But just because the media doesn't pick it up doesn't mean there's not wonderful things happening in our world every day."
Worrall pointed out that while the journalist cliche, "If it bleeds, it leads," exists for a reason, good news does hold a valuable place in the media today and people crave those kind of stories.
"It proves to us that we can do it ourselves," he said. "A lot of times, it feels overwhelming to give or be generous, and yet just the tiniest act can change your life or change somebody else's life as well."
To hear more of the conversation surrounding Malala's accomplishments as one of the many untapped examples existing in Pakistan and across the globe, watch the full HuffPost Live clip in the video above.