Ghandi said: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ – that quote is often used and has become quite cliché. It’s a pity that we no longer grasp the depth of that quote to the point of literally becoming the change we want to see. Recently, I came across a recording of Leyamah Gbowee done in New Orleans – USA,
Brief Background on Leyamah Gbowee
2011 Nobel Peace Laureate Leymah Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist, trained social worker and women’s rights advocate. She is the 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. 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, “Might Be Our Powers,” and in the documentary, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell.” In addition, Gbowee is the Newsweek Daily Beast’s Africa columnist.
Many of us look for hope in others, wait for a word of encouragement, that simple phrase, “It will be ok” yet very seldom do we look inside of us. Faith is the substance of things hoped for yet we often look for the substance so we may have evidence of hope. In a harrowing yet inspiring tale, Leyamah Gbowee, takes the audience through situations she was confronted with, the hardships she faced and how she rose from the ashes.
We do not need to keep looking back at the Ghandi’s and Mandela’s of this world but each one of us has the power to become a Ghandi or Mandela wherever, whenever. The world is waiting for you – to be the hope that brings life to a world that is filled with so much pain and misery.
