Leymah Gbowee

Leymah Gbowee is a social worker, peace activist, and co-recipient of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Tawakel Karman "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."

Gbowee was born on February 1, 1972, in Monrovia, Liberia. At the end of the First Liberian Civil War (1989-1996), Gbowee participated in a program run by UNICEF to train people in social work to counsel victims of war that opened her eyes to her own abuse by the father of her children. She fled Liberia for Ghana but returned to Liberia due to the extremely poor living conditions as a refugee. She earned an associate of arts degree in social work from Mother Patern College of Health Sciences in Monrovia, Liberia, in 2001 and a master’s degree in conflict transformation from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in 2007.

In 2003, Gbowee organized a grass-roots women's peace movement, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War. She then led efforts to get Liberian women to vote for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the 2005 presidential elections, playing a vital role in Sirleaf’s success.

Gbowee is the founder and president of Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa and the executive director of the Women of Peace and Security Program at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. She previously served on the High-Level Task Force for the International Conference on Population and Development and was an Oxfam Global Ambassador.