I was delighted to see your item in Saturday’s Press about Malala Yousafzai’s father (‘My children argue like every family’, July 13). Your readers may be interested to know of a York connection to the family.

The first time that Malala spoke in public, as a young schoolgirl, was at an event organised by Khwendo Kor, a woman-headed NGO in the northwest of Pakistan (where Malala was raised).

The NGO’s founder (in 1993) and chief officer to this day is Maryam Bibi who was later a postgraduate student at the University of York and to whom it awarded an Honorary Doctorate in 2011 for her human rights work.

Khwendo Kor continues to do remarkable work against all the odds in girls’ education, female adult literacy, health, women’s civil rights, domestic violence and humanitarian aid in this patriarchal, conflict-ridden part of the world.

It is supported by the UK Friends of Khwendo Kor charity (FROK) (www.frok.org.uk) which is based here in York.

Any readers wanting to know more are invited to contact us.

Marilyn Crawshaw

Chair, FROK,

Middlethorpe Grove, York