2011 Nobel Prize Laureate Leymah Gbowee

  Winter Park, FL---“As long as we continue to sit back, there are people who will continue to do bad.”

 And Leymah Gbowee (pronounced bau-wee) , a peace activist and Nobel Laureate, is not one to sit back.

   
At a speech presented by the Winter Park Institute, held at the Alfond Stadium at Rollins College on 

September 16, 2015, Ms.Gbowee tells an amusing story: 

 Some boys at a restaurant in New York City take sunglasses from a little girl and throw them in the 

trash.  The girl starts to cry, and the girl’s friends laugh.  Ms. Gbowee goes over to the table and asks the 

girls, “Which of you is this girl's best friend?” One girl gestures that she is the best friend.  Ms. Gbowee firmly

 tells her that she should be ashamed and asks them to think how they would feel if they were the ones who 

were being laughed at as they cry.  After a blunt lesson, she says to them "now who wants ice cream?" and 

treats the girls.

   
   She then follows the boys as they try to escape up some stairs.  She calls out to them to stop and lets 

them know she wants to talk to them. The boys reply that it isn't her business. 

She retorts "See how I'm dressed? I am not from here.  You disrespect me, I will whoop your ass." The 

boys stop and listen.  She asks them, “What would you do if someone did this to your sister?”  She told 

them they were not to do it again because it's not right.  She softens the blow with “Now, who wants a hug? 

 Come give auntie a hug.”

   Despite her tough words to the boys, Ms. Gbowee is not a violent person.  In fact, she won the 2011 

Nobel Peace Prize for her non-violent efforts leading to increased women’s rights and participation in 

Liberia.  Ms. Gbowee knows it is up to each individual to take notice of injustice and take action.  This is 

why her mission is to encourage people to take up activism wherever they can.  She asserts, “ ‘That ain’t 

our business’ is responsible for the refugee crisis,” referring to the crisis in Syria.  She says, “Good people 

need to stand up and do activism.”  

   
  She did and put an end to a war.

  
 Ms. Gbowee was born in Liberia in 1972.  The Liberia of Ms. Gbowee’s youth was peaceful.  She lived in 

a home with both her parents, who were of the indigenous tribe Kpelle. She went to a private high school 

where she graduated in the top ten percent of her class.   She aspired to be a pediatrician and had just 

begun college at the University of Liberia when her world was turned upside down by war. 

   
  She shares how she went from being a 17 year-old girl responsible only for herself and her future, to being 

responsible for fifty people under her roof, all fleeing the war that had erupted in the region surrounding her 

hometown of Monrovia. 

   
  Her mother would not return for a week.  Her father, who worked as a radio technician at the U.S. 

Embassy, did not come home. She was resentful of having to make all the decisions, while having to protect 

her parents’ possessions.  The course of her life would be changed forever.

   
  From 1989 to 1996, the duration of the First Liberian Civil War, rebels and government fighters alike were 

looting provisions and terrorizing the people. Ms. Gbowee, along with the population of Liberia, struggled 

with death, rape and hunger as daily possibilities.  

   
  Ms. Gbowee was eventually able to begin pursuing her own dreams. Through volunteer work at the 

Trauma Healing and Reconciliation Program, Ms. Gbowee became aware of another kind of healing work 

that was desperately needed, that is the healing of the minds of women brutalized by events during the war.   

Through her work at THRP she would meet mentors including Reverend B.B. Colley who encouraged her

to learn about current events, economics and politics to enable her to deeply understand the source of 

conflict.  Her continued studying, as well as guidance from another mentor Hizkias Assefa, a conflict 

resolution and reconciliation expert, would expand her understanding  of peace-building and conflict 

resolution. 

   
  Ms. Gbowee had a realization that it was the men who waged war for control of resources and personal 

gain, while the women and children suffered.  As she continued her training and counseling efforts, she had a 

dream in which a voice told her to “put the women together to pray for peace.”  This would be the catalyst 

for a series of organizing efforts to encourage the women of both Christian and Muslim beliefs to put aside 

traditional biases and join together in extensive peaceful protests.  In her Nobel Prize interview she 

contends, “If you want to build peace, you cannot reinforce or continue to enforce those things that people 

use to divide your communities. In Liberia, ethnicity, social class, status and religion, were some of the 

common things.”  She helped them to understand they were all the same in that they were women, and it is 

the women and children who suffer in war.

   
  One particularly bold protest, which entailed over 100 women sitting down outside the meeting room of 

peace negotiators, would lead to the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Agreement.  Although 

 there had been many treaties signed over the course of the war, this one would successfully bring an end to 

the war.  She credits the success of the movement to the ability of the women to overcome their 

separateness, as well as the conviction of all of the women that “For us, the price of peace was even worth 

the lives that we live.”

   
  At the conclusion of her message, she is asked a question submitted by the audience, “Is there hope?” 
 
 Ms. Gbowee responds with a smile, “Yes. We are the hope.”  When asked, “What makes you happy?”   

She responds, “ Young people and the tenacity they have, and the hope they bring to this world.”  She 

knows there are good people who will continue to take up the work.