Leymah Gbowee: Leading Change Through Activism — The Liberian Women’s Experience

Leymah Gbowee

Leymah Gbowee’s life-long passion is to make the world a better place. She has done so by plying her own form of non-violent activism, first in Liberia to end civil war and most recently in North Korea by joining women marching for unity. She will share her mission for peace and her efforts toward that noble goal.

Speaker Bio

Leymah Gbowee is founder and current president of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa. She was the founding head of the Liberian Reconciliation Initiative, and was the co-founder and former executive director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-A). She is also a founding member and former Liberia coordinator of Women in Peacebuilding Network/West Africa Network for Peacebuilding (WIPNET/WANEP).

Gbowee is currently named a Distinguished Fellow in Social Justice at Barnard College. She travels internationally to advocate for human rights and peace and security.

Gbowee’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 award-winning documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

Leymah Gbowee