Hope Conference Speakers

Leymah Roberta Gbowee
2011 Nobel Peace Laureate
Social Worker
Liberian Peace Activist
Women’s Rights Advocate
Founder/President, Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa

The 2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker, and women’s rights advocate. She is founder and president of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa, head of the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative and co-founder and 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’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 documentary, Pray the Devil Back to Hell. In addition, Gbowee is the Newsweek Daily Beast's Africa columnist.

She serves on the board of directors of the Nobel Women’s Initiative and the PeaceJam Foundation, and she is a member of the African Women Leaders Network for Reproductive Health and Family Planning. She holds an associate’s degree in social work from the Mother Patern College of Health Sciences in Monrovia, Liberia, and an MA in Conflict Transformation from Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, VA. She is based in Accra, Ghana.

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