2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker, public speaker and women’s rights advocate. She is founder and current President of the Gbowee Peace Foundation Africa. Leymah Gbowee also founded the Liberia Reconciliation Initiative and is co-founder and former Executive Director of Women Peace and Security Network Africa (WIPSEN-A).
Being part or the Selection Committee is a great responsibility. What kind of criteria do you follow when choosing the right candidate?
Personally, because I do a lot of work in communities, I look for someone who is invested in communities, someone who doesn't care about being in the spotlight. Their work is not about being on CNN or BBC; their work is about community. They help change their community. That is the first thing.
The second thing is that the person who does that work to keep their community stable is not benefiting from that politically. So, those are the most important things. People are making sacrifices beyond measure – they are sacrificing their family time, their free time, every minute they have. They are missing out on the basic enjoyment of life just to serve the humanity. That is what I always look for.
What is the importance of initiatives like Aurora?
One thing that struck me was the part about awakening humanity. This has always been on my mind, the need for humanity to rise. If you look at the places where we have wars, let's take Syria for example, there are more people who are suffering than those who have guns. My theory is that most of the time when we have these things happen, it’s because a lot of good people are afraid to act. And when good people refuse to act, bad people take over our society. So, when the Aurora team approached me, and I saw that they wanted to awaken our humanity, I thought, if this is something that will help us mobilize more people for good, I definitely want to be a part of it.
Do you think we can educate people to encourage them to be more involved in solving the humanitarian issues? Is it possible to spread compassion through education?
We can educate people to do more good. Most of the time when people think about what good they can do, they imagine big things, like building schools and hospitals. But let me tell you that this good thing you can do may be simply helping someone with their bag, helping an older person cross the street, assisting a child, giving someone water or even smiling to someone who is feeling down. Those are the simplest things that we can do. And those things are the ones that give people hope in humanity.
What do you think is the most pressing humanitarian issue that we need to tackle right now?
We must recognize people’s rights. We have to give everyone a chance to be the best person they can be. Discrimination and things like that make it easy for young people to decide they want to fight. If you give them opportunities instead, it will make it very difficult for them to choose fighting.
Until we end wars, until we can deal with issues that make it easy for people to kill other people, we will continue to have the lack of water, we will continue to have the lack of food, we will continue to have the refugee crisis. I think the most pressing issue right now is for every society to recognize the basic rights of these people and provide them with their necessities.