Christiana Thorpe's Acceptance Speech


This award inspires not just me but all of us to carry on in a devastated country, to try to change what seem like inflexible attitudes, to education and inspire women and girls-and all those who care about them.

It is through education, we firmly believe, that women and girls-the majority of war casualties-can realize their human rights. And today, restoring respect for human rights is especially important after ten years of conflict in which all rights, except for the rights of the strong, were trampled.

But before we can focus on education, we must restore dignity to the women and girls who have been abused in war.

I look into the eyes of the girls and women we work with-all of them war survivors-and I see fear and mistrust when they first come to us. But eventually, after we work together, I see confidence and hope.

We must build a new society that justifies that hope.

Each one's experience is unique. The contours of the physical experience may seem similar-abduction, slave labor and sexual abuse-but the emotional response is different with each individual. The essence of our intervention lies in honoring that individuality and difference in our trauma counseling, medical care, job training and education, to name a few programs.

My organization, the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE), is a pan-African organization of influential women in government, universities and civil society-all of them committed to expanding education for girls. In 1995, along with other dedicated women, I founded the Sierra Leone chapter.

Through education girls and women will be able to take part politically, economically and socially and participate in rebuilding their society.

(More on League's work in West Africa and Sierra Leone)

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