Malala Yousafzai Talks New Doc About Free-Diving Korean Grandmothers and Turning 30: 'It Does Feel Big' (Exclusive)

A community of feisty grandmothers who free-dive to catch seafood for their families struck a chord with Malala Yousafzai.

Known as the haenyeo, the often 60-, 70- and 80-year-old divers of South Korea’s Jeju Island are currently fighting to maintain a centuries-long tradition of diving to the ocean floor, sans oxygen, to source marine life. After providing food for their island for generations, the ancient matriarchal tradition is dying out, in part due to environmental threats.

“Activism can be a very lonely journey,” says Yousafzai, 27, whose new Apple TV+ film about the extraordinary group of women, The Last of the Sea Women, marks the first documentary from her production company, Extracurricular Productions. 

“You gain strength and resilience by looking to other women who have made it through, who have struggled for finding equal opportunities for themselves," she tells PEOPLE. "When I look at the stories of the haenyeo, it gives me even more hope and courage that with our collective work, with that commitment and resilience, we can make [it] through it. So it does inspire me. And I know it will inspire many other women and girls as well.”

Director Sue Kim has long been enamored by the haenyeo, a fiercely independent and daring group of women often referred to as real-life mermaids.

“The haenyeo are a community of women that have existed for centuries on Jeju Island in South Korea,” says Kim, who first witnessed the female divers when she was 8 years old and took cameras underwater to document their work.

“They're known for diving down to the bottom of the ocean to harvest marine life, and they can hold their breath for like two, three minutes and they dive for four to six hours at a time. And because they did this work, they became the breadwinners of their families and matriarchs of the island. So basically, the island became a matriarchal island because of this community of women.”

But on a more recent visit back to the island, Kim realized that the time-honored tradition — and way of life — was dying out. 

“I went back to Jeju about 10 years ago and I spoke to a haenyeo that was 84 years old,” recalls Kim. “She’s still diving. She just came out of the water. And I asked her where all the younger haenyeo were, and she said, 'There are none. We are the last generation of the haenyeo,' which is when really this film took shape.”

Yousafzai, a lifelong activist who survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban at age 15 after speaking up for education rights for girls, launched her production company with the belief that “storytelling can help us bring connections between communities and bring attention to the shared humanity that we all enjoy,” she says.

She joined The Last of the Sea Women as a producer after being struck by the women who have rallied to bring attention to an environmental crisis decimating their way of life, as the ocean waters surrounding their island continue to be polluted with toxic waste.

“They're activists,” she says. “And in the documentary you see how they all come together, so determined, so dedicated to raise more awareness about what's happening with the sea life and how it's going to impact them. It tells you that you can be an activist at any stage in your life if you believe something needs to change.”

At 27, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who graduated from Oxford University in 2020 and married husband Asser Malik in 2021, says she's feeling reflective as a new decade looms. “It does feel big,” she says. “It's not the age you're reaching, but it's like the age you're leaving behind.”

But, she says, “when I look at the haenyeo, these incredible sea women in their 70s, 80s, after watching this documentary, I have been very optimistic about my future. And I can't wait to be 40 and dive in the ocean.”

The Last of the Sea Women is now on Apple TV+.