Women, Peace & Security
Since winning the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, Leymah Gbowee has found herself juggling the increased responsibilities of global activism and caring for her six children. She told Observer Women and Family last week that the platform the award has granted her is inundated with public speaking engagements, which has compounded her work as a global peace and women’s right campaigner.
“Since the award, I have been working continuously; doing what I know... best. I have continued with my peace and security work -- working with communities, girls and women -- and continued with my global advocacy. As a matter of fact, I think life has changed after the Nobel [award]. I have been pressured to do more for peace. The work has also increased,” she said in an exclusive interview.
Immediately after the award was announced, Gbowee was contacted by the President to return home [from Ghana] to spearhead the country’s reconciliation initiative. So far, Gbowee has approached that task through jamborees intended to reunite the citizens of this country.
But balancing the time needed to undertake this task with that which is also much needed to be with her six children, Gbowee could only say this, “The President’s request for me to head the national reconciliation committee is time consuming. The work is immense.”
She quickly added that she remains resolute and will not be deterred. “Some will ask me, ‘Now that you are a Nobel Laureate, what is your brand?’ All I can say is that my brand is still women’s issues; it is still young girls and it is still reconciliation.”
To pursue her relentless desire to help transform the lives of young Liberian women and girls, she recently launched the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa. Launched on Wednesday, April 4, the foundation is a non-profit outfit she founded and heads. Her aim, she said, is to give back to young women and girls her wealth of knowledge and experience acquired over the years in the activism arena.
From early 2002 to present, Leymah has known none else but to campaign for peace by influencing women from across diverse cultures, religions and ethnic groupings to stand up and advocate their own cause during times of conflict. Although she broke away from the Women in Peace Building Network (WIPNET), a network of women she co-founded and coordinated [during the 2000s] some seven years ago, Leymah has continued to work to strengthen women’s resolve to let no one negotiate their rights, especially their right to speak for themselves (decision-making). In December 2012, she will be parting ways with the Women in Peace and Security Network (WIPSEN), a Ghana-based organization which she also co-founded.
In order not to sit by after netting the world’s most revered accolade, the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize, Leymah has decided to channel her energy and expertise to the Gbowee Foundation, which aims to emancipate girls from socio-economic squalor by giving them life skills.
The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was won in part by two daughters of Liberia President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Leymah Gbowee; and a third woman, a Yermeni co-winner, Tawwakol Karman.
Already, four young Liberian women have been awarded scholarships to further their studies at the Mother Patern College, Cuttington University and the University of Liberia to the tune of US$12,000 by the Foundation.
At a news conference last week, Ms. Gbowee announced that her Foundation had secured two full scholarships, including international travel, to Vassar College in New York, USA. Additionally, two one-year scholarships valued at US$60,000 and US$70,000 respectively, have been secured by the Foundation to afford two young women a chance to pursue advanced studies at the University of Indianapolis in the United States, Ms. Gbowee told the news conference. That’s not all. With funding from the USAID, the Gbowee Foundation is providing scholarships to four young women to pursue graduate certificates at the Women’s Peace Leadership Academy Cohort at the Eastern Mennonite University in the U.S. The program, according to Gbowee, kicks off in May 2012.