Pakistani novelist Alishba Khan Barech was named the winner of the \u201cYoung Woman of the Year\u201d category at the Women Changing the World Awards 2025, a press release issued on Friday said.<\/p>\n
The Women Changing The World Awards is a global programme recognising the work of \u201cincredible women making a positive difference in the world across a range of industries and areas including business, sustainability, leadership, health, education, product development, innovation and technology\u201d.<\/p>\n
The awards aim to amplify women\u2019s voices and contributions worldwide, and to \u201cawaken hearts and recapture dreams\u201d through collective empowerment, the press release issued today said.<\/p>\n
Last month, Barech was selected as a finalist for the category and was celebrated across Pakistan at the time, praised as a moment of national pride.<\/p>\n
According to the press release, Barech was officially named a global winner on April 3 at the ceremony held at the Park Hyatt London River Thames.<\/p>\n
She was awarded by the Zimbabwean-American Dr Tererai Trent and Britain\u2019s Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York.<\/p>\n
Alishba\u2019s work has long centred on rewriting dominant narratives, particularly around Balochistan, the press release said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is Pakistan\u2019s youngest novelist and memoirist, having written her debut novel at the age of 11, youngest memoirist at 14 and self-published author at 16,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n
It said that her activism spanned work with Unicef Pakistan as a youth ambassador for mental health and polio eradication, and she was currently serving as a youth advisor to Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and was also a member of the National Youth Council.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe serves as a youth ambassador for the cricket franchise Quetta Gladiators,\u201d the press release said, adding that she was also the first female Pashtun from Balochistan to secure a merit scholarship to the John Locke Summer University.<\/p>\n
According to the press release, Alishba said: \u201cAs I\u2019ve said before, my mission has always been to rewrite the narratives that define us.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis award is dedicated with all my heart to my parents, my teachers, my beloved province Balochistan, and my country Pakistan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYesterday, when my country\u2019s name was called among global achievers, it was more than a personal milestone\u2014it was proof that stories of resilience and brilliance can rise from Nushki and Quetta, not just the headlines of conflict and militancy we\u2019ve grown used to,\u201d Barech said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pakistani novelist Alishba Khan Barech was named the winner of the \u201cYoung Woman of the Year\u201d category at the Women Changing the World Awards 2025, a press release issued on Friday said. The Women Changing The World Awards is a global programme recognising the work of \u201cincredible women making a positive difference in the world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7824,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-showbiz-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7825,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7823\/revisions\/7825"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}