Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai didn't want any birthday presents on her 18th birthday.
Instead, the advocate for the rights of women and girls marked the occasion by opening the Malala Yousafzai All-Girls School in Lebanon, near the Syrian border, on Sunday.
The school will provide secondary education to more than 200 Syrian girls, between the ages of 14 and 18, who are living in refugee camps in the Bekaa Valley.
In a statement posted on her website, Yousafzai said she was "honoured" to celebrate her birthday with the "brave and inspiring girls of Syria."
"I am here on behalf of the 28 million children who are kept from the classroom because of armed conflict. Their courage and dedication to continue their school in difficult conditions inspires people around the world and it is our duty to stand by them," the teenager said in the statement.
In a speech last week at the Oslo Education Summit, Yousafzai said she had decided to eschew birthday presents and instead wanted to push for action in bringing quality education to girls across the world.
The Pakistani youth, who was shot by a Taliban gunman at the age of 15 for attending school, has also started social media campaign called #booksnotbullets.
"We have been campaigning hard to tell our leaders to invest in education and hope -- to invest an additional $39 billion each year, or just eight days of military spending, to make sure that every child can get 12 years of quality education for free," Yousafzai wrote in a blog post on Sunday.
"A child should not be kept away from the opportunity of going to school just because that child is born in a poor family in a poor country," she added.
Yousafzai's organization, the Malala Fund, also announced a grant of $250,000 to help UNICEF and the UN refugee agency meet a funding shortfall for girls' education programs in Jordan's Azraq refugee camp.
"To all the students, you will read new books. You will discover new ideas. You will discover new ideas. You will learn together. You will dream together. And you will inspire the world," Yousafzai said in the statement.
