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<\/a>Gbowee led a nationwide women\u2019s movement that was instrumental in halting Liberia\u2019s second civil war in 2003.<\/p>\n
\u201cLeymah Gbowee mobilized and organized women across ethnic and religious dividing lines to bring an end to the long war in Liberia, and to ensure women\u2019s participation in elections,\u201d noted the Norwegian Nobel Committee<\/a> in making the award. \u201cShe has since worked to enhance the influence of women in West Africa during and after war.\u201d<\/p>\n Starting in the 1990s<\/strong><\/p>\n Gbowee\u2019s links to Mennonites began in 1998, when she received training in \u201ctrauma healing and reconciliation\u201d and then worked at rehabilitating child soldiers. Perhaps unbeknownst to her, the first trainings in this subject in Liberia occurred when Barry Hart<\/a>, a Mennonite with trauma expertise, arrived in Liberia in the early 1990s, with funding from Mennonite Central Committee<\/a> and what is now called Mennonite Mission Network<\/a>, both based in the United States.<\/p>\n Hart trained Lutheran church workers who, in turn, trained Gbowee. Hart also arranged for Sam Gbaydee Doe<\/a>, who became Gbowee\u2019s friend and mentor, to earn a graduate degree in conflict transformation at EMU. In 1998 Doe became one of the earliest master\u2019s degree graduates from what is now called the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, setting the stage for Gbowee to earn the same degree nine years later.<\/p>\n In her 2011 memoir, \u201cMighty Be Our Powers<\/a>,\u201d Gbowee says she came to EMU because it was \u201can American college with a well-known program in peace-building and conflict resolution. It was a Christian school that emphasized community and service.\u201d<\/p>\n Responding to the Nobel announcement, EMU President Loren Swartzendruber<\/a> said: \u00a0\u201cThe impact that Leymah was able to have, first in Liberia, then in West Africa, and now all over the world, shows that another, nonviolent reality is possible. This affirms the dreams and hopes of groups, educational institutions, and churches that are devoted to supporting peace work.”<\/p>\n \u201cWe plant what we call \u2018seeds of peace\u2019 as widely as we possibly can, usually through education in peace building theory and skills, and then trust that some of these seeds will bear fruit,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Seeds of Peace<\/strong><\/p>\n The woman Gbowee calls her \u201ctrue friend\u201d and fellow founder of Women, Peace and Security Network Africa<\/a>, Thelma Ekiyor, attended EMU\u2019s 2002 Summer Peacebuilding Institute, as did Gbowee\u2019s first champion and employer in Liberia, Lutheran Reverend \u201cBB\u201d Colley, who attended the annual institute in 2000 and 2001. At Colley\u2019s urging, Gbowee read \u201cThe Politics of Jesus<\/a>\u201d by the well-known Mennonite ethicist John Howard Yoder.<\/p>\n Gbowee, who was named EMU\u2019s Alumna of the Year in the spring of 2011<\/a>, is the central figure in a documentary co-produced by Abigail Disney<\/a>, \u201cPray the Devil Back to Hell<\/a>.\u201d Completed in 2008, the documentary is part of a \u201cWomen, War & Peace<\/a>\u201d series to be aired over five successive Tuesdays in October 2011 on public television stations in the United States.<\/p>\n In her memoir, Gbowee credits Sam Gbaydee Do<\/a>e<\/a> with introducing her to the West African Network for Peacebuilding<\/a> (WANEP), an organization that he co-founded and led after finishing his master\u2019s degree at EMU. (Doe received EMU\u2019s annual Distinguished Service Award in 2002<\/a> and now works for the United Nations. His daughter, Samfee, graduated from EMU in the spring of 2011, overlapping for one year with Gbowee\u2019s eldest son, Joshua \u201cNuku\u201d Mensah, who enrolled in the fall of 2010.)<\/p>\n \u201cWANEP, based in Ghana, emphasized using nonviolent strategies and encouraged women to join the effort to address problems of violence, war and human rights abuses,\u201d wrote Gbowee.<\/p>\n WANEP supported the launch of Women in Peacebuilding Network<\/a>, the organization through which Gbowee and her colleagues conducted the campaigns that played a key role in ending the civil war in Liberia. (This organization is the predecessor to Gbowee\u2019s current organization, Women, Peace and Security Network Africa.) The WANEP-launched women\u2019s network\u2014plus Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace<\/a>, the grassroots movement led by Gbowee\u2014laid the groundwork for the election of fellow Nobel Laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as president of Liberia, the first woman president of an African nation.<\/p>\n WANEP is now led by Emmanuel Bombande <\/a>of Ghana, a 2002 graduate of CJP.<\/p>\n CJP Teachings Credited<\/strong><\/p>\n Gbowee\u2019s memoir credits two of the founding professors of CJP, Hizkias Assefa<\/a> and John Paul Lederach<\/a>, with strongly influencing her through their writings and teachings.<\/p>\n \u201cI read Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi and the Kenyan author and conflict and reconciliation expert Hizkias Assefa, who believed that reconciliation between victim and perpetrator was the only way to really resolve conflict, especially civil conflict, in the modern world. Otherwise, Assefa wrote, both remained bound together forever, one waiting for apology or revenge, the other fearing retribution.\u201d<\/p>\n As Gbowee began to attend international meetings pertaining to peace and feeling the need to \u201cspeak with more knowledge and authority,\u201d she says, \u201cI began amassing books on conflict resolution theory: \u2018The Journey Toward Reconciliation<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018The Little Book of Conflict Transformation<\/a>,\u2019 both by John Paul Lederach<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In May 2004, the summer after the Liberian peace accords were signed, Gbowee came to EMU to attend classes at its annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute. \u201cThose four weeks were another transformative time for me,\u201d she says in her book, noting that she studied with Assefa at the institute and with Howard Zehr<\/a>, \u201cwho taught me the concept of \u2018restorative justice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRestorative justice was\u2026 something we could see as ours and not artificially imposed by Westerners. And we needed it, needed that return to tradition. A culture of impunity flourished throughout Africa. People, officials, governments did evil but were never held accountable. More than we needed to punish them, we needed to undo the damage they had done.\u201d<\/p>\n Women in Peacebuilding at EMU<\/strong><\/p>\n In June 2011 at EMU, Gbowee participated in a by-invitation conference on the needs of women peacebuilders around the world. Participants included filmmaker Abigail Disney of the United States, Koila Costello-Olsson<\/a> of Fiji, Suraya Sadeed<\/a> of Afghanistan, and Dekha Ibrahim Abdi<\/a>, a Kenyan-Muslim woman of Somali ethnic origin who received the 2007 Right Livelihood Prize. (Abdi died in a car accident after returning to Kenya in July 2011.)<\/p>\n \u201cAs a direct result of this conference, we will be launching a women and peacebuilding program at our 2012 Summer Peacebuilding Institute<\/a>,\u201d says Lynn Roth<\/a>, executive director of CJP.<\/p>\n The announcement from EMU on the Nobel Peace Prize award can be found at emu.edu<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"