On the fourth day, I started to cry during the ride home. Were the little girls being punished? I asked my parents. What had they done wrong? My parents tried to explain as best they could the stigma that surrounded and still surrounds girls in our country. How do you explain that to a 9-year-old? What I took away from the discussion was that the parents we met believed that their sons were better than their daughters. It rankled. I couldn’t understand why, but from that moment, I vowed to help those girls as much as I could.

That experience, and the time I spent working with my parents after that trip, are what drove me to use my name and my voice to support the education and empowerment of girls. I was a girl, from a modest background. I have two loving parents who educated me and gave me the opportunity to chase my dreams. I worked very hard, and today I am financially independent and successful in my chosen career. If I can do this, so can countless other girls!

They can do it, but not alone.

I know: You have heard this all before, and you’re already tuning out: the sorry lot of girls in much of the world, not again! But I ask you to please hold on. I want to tell you how we can stop shaking our heads over the sorrowful situation and move ahead, in 2015 and beyond.

After yet another year in which girls attending school made headlines for all the wrong reasons — the Boko Haram kidnapping of more than 250 girls from a school in Nigeria is one of the most horrific — the year ended with a schoolgirl in the headlines for all the right reasons, being celebrated for her achievements: In October, Malala Yousafzai, a student and an education advocate, and the Indian child-rights campaigner Kailash Satyarthi were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their “struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education,” as the Nobel Committee explained. The committee noted that Malala had shown by example that children and young people can help improve their own situations.

We can make 2015 a turning point for girls across the world. As Malala said: “Let us pick up our books and our pens — they are our most powerful weapons. One child, one teacher, one book and one pen can change the world. Education is the only solution.”