“To live like a tree, lonely and free / To live as brothers like trees in a forest”

About Leymah Gbowee

Leymah Gbowee is a Nobel Peace Laureate and women's rights and peace activist from Liberia. Leymah founded Women in Peacebuilding Program/ West African Network for Peacebuilding (WIPNET/WANEP). In 2009 the John F Kennedy Profile in Courage Award was given to Leymah, together with the women of Liberia, for their role in the peace process in Liberia. She also worked as a Commissioner Designate for Liberia Truth and Reconciliation Commission from February 2004 to October 2005. the Executive Director of the said company.

She is the central character of a documentary film entitled "Pray the Devil Back to Hell". Ms. Gbowee holds a MA in Conflict Transformation from the Eastern Mennonite University and is a mother of five.

Articles by Leymah Gbowee

Leymah Gbowee: five words for the men of Libya

Leymah Gbowee 10 June 2013

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Leymah Gbowee was recently invited to Tripoli to deliver a speech on the role of women in transforming conflict and leading reconciliation in Libya. When she saw who was in the audience, she changed her prepared speech...

Child soldiers, child wives: wounded for life

Leymah Gbowee 26 November 2012

Working with ex-child soldiers of Charles Taylor's army, and the girls they have taken as wives, has convinced Nobel Peace laureate Leymah Gbowee that the abuse women suffer during conflict is a reflection of the interaction between men and women, boys and girls, during peace time.

This week's guest editors

Our guest editors James Ron, Leslie Vinjamuri, Sophie Arie and Archana Pandya introduce this week's theme of:

Emerging powers and human rights.

Nobel Women's Initiative

Europe from the bottom up

A new Europe can only come from the bottom up
Etienne Balibar

Mali: the plot thickens

Remote control war

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

openDemocracy Ltd, The Print House, 18 Ashwin Street, London, E8 3DL. Tel: +44 (0) 207 193 0676

openDemocracy

Welcome to openDemocracy! We are a digital commons, publishing high quality news analysis, debates and blogs about the world and the way we govern ourselves. More...

Latest from the oD blog.

Syria and Geneva II

Best of the rest:

Arab Awakening | Can Europe Make it? | Drug and Criminal Justice Policy Forum | OurBeeb

OurKingdom

About us
OurKingdom works to investigate and illuminate the crisis of democracy in Britain and analyse how its failings can be redressed.

We encourage original debate untrammelled by party political loyalties.

We ask how we as citizens can secure liberty, human rights, self-government and real democracy. ...more on OurKingdom

Pick of the debates: Democratic Wealth: building a citizens' economy, edited by Stuart White, uses republican theory to explore ideas around how to democratise the economy. Co-hosted with Politics in Spires, a blog sponsored by the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

oD Russia

50.50

Recent articles on 50.50

50.50 Dialogues

About 50.50
50.50 is openDemocracy's section dedicated to exploring issues of gender equality and social justice at the global level.

We are committed to promoting human rights and inclusive democracy through dialogue and debate. But a global debate without the female half of humanity is neither global nor democratic. With this in mind, 50.50 publishes women's analysis, insight and views on current affairs.

Can Europe Make It?

Spread the word

Spread the word is a brand new section of openDemocracy's not-for-profit web platform.

This space is for other not-for-profit organisations of all kinds to publicise your activities and spread the exchange of ideas.

You will be able to link to all your publications, and events anywhere in the world. You will have your own openDemocracy page and all new announcements will be ticker-taped to our front page.

This organisation subscription is available for a modest annual fee, dependent on the size of your organisation.

Please contact Jonathan Bowles at supporters@opendemocracy.net if you are interested in joining.

If you're interested in developing editorial projects on openDemocracy, please see our Editorial partnerships page

We are grateful to the following organisations for their support in developing this initiative:

Norwegian Peacebuilding Resource Centre

Rockefeller Brothers Fund

openSecurity

openEconomy

Arab Awakening

In the months following the start of the Arab Revolutions, articles and analysis poured into openDemocracy from contributors across the Middle East and Europe. Gradually, the impact of Tahrir Square began to extend well beyond the Middle East as democratic inspiration travelled from east to west. Arab Awakening tries to capture that inspiration and use it to help us read a rapidly changing world.

"As students of politics is it is vital to study the power of imagination." -Professor Charles Tripp, SOAS

Debates

Columnists | This week's window on the Middle East

OurNHS

AddThis

About Leymah Gbowee

Articles by Leymah Gbowee

Leymah Gbowee: five words for the men of Libya

Child soldiers, child wives: wounded for life

This week's guest editors

A Turkish Spring?

Woolwich - terror or conflict?

Iran myths

Palestinian borders

Nobel Women's Initiative

Europe from the bottom up

The media in Europe

Mali: the plot thickens

Remote control war

oDRussia at journalismfestival .com

Stay Informed

Advertising notice

Cities in Conflict

Window on the Middle East

Most popular

openDemocracy on Twitter

openDemocracy on Facebook

Our Authors

Secondary links