Leymah Gbowee, 2011 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

Eminent Voices December 12, 2015

What is key to building peace?

Ms. Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker and women’s rights advocate. She is Founder and current President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa and has created numerous other peace-building networks in Liberia and West Africa. Leymah’s leadership of the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace – which brought together Christian and Muslim women in a nonviolent movement that played a pivotal role in ending Liberia’s civil war in 2003 – is chronicled in her memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers, and in the documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

In this video, the Nobel Peace Laureate talks about the crucial importance of girls’ education and why she chose to focus on this as a way to build peace in a society.