International activist and 2011 Nobel Peace Prize winner Leymah Gbowee inspired an audience Wednesday at Ransburg Auditorium with the tale of how women in her native Liberia banded together across ethnic and religious lines to end a long civil war and depose a cruel dictator.
“We had no idea what advocacy or activism was,” said the author of Mighty Be Our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War. “I’m shocked that I managed to survive my own life.”
Gbowee spoke, joked and took questions for more than an hour during the event, presented by UIndy’s International Relations program in cooperation with the Sagamore Institute.
Asked what stance the U.S. and its citizens should take toward the developing nations of Africa, she said well-meaning foreigners often fall short in their aid efforts because they fail to understand the culture in which they are working.
“If you want to solve a community’s problems, ask them,” she said. “It must be on the terms of the community. Don’t come in with ‘We know it all.'”
Those eager to make the world a better place should start by addressing the needs in their own communities, she said: “It’s easy to go outside to purge your conscience.”
One of Gbowee’s major concerns in western Africa is the education of young women. While introducing her to the stage, UIndy President Beverley Pitts announced that the university will offer a two-semester scholarship for a Liberian student to study in Indianapolis.
