Giveaway! Enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of Mighty Be Our Powers, by Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee

We are giving away an autographed copy of Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee’s memoir, Mighty Be Our Powers. Gbowee, who spoke at the 2011 Social Enterprise Conference on the day she was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, wrote about her experience in leading a grassroots women’s movement to end a 14-year civil war in Liberia.

Enter to win this signed copy by Friday, January 27!

How to enter (must complete all steps):

1. Follow the Social Enterprise Program (@SEProgram) on Twitter.
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   (Sample tweet: I entered to win a signed copy of @mightybepowers by Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee! Enter to win with @SEProgram: http://bit.ly/wQjEVj
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The winner will be selected at random and announced by Monday, January 30.

About Mighty Be Our Powers

As a young woman, Leymah Gbowee was broken by the Liberian civil war, a brutal conflict that tore apart her life and claimed the lives of countless relatives and friends. Years of fighting destroyed her country — and shattered Gbowee’s girlhood hopes and dreams. As a young mother trapped in a nightmare of domestic abuse, she found the courage to turn her bitterness into action, propelled by her realization that it is women who suffer most during conflicts — and that the power of women working together can create an unstoppable force. In 2003, the passionate and charismatic Gbowee helped organize and then led the Liberian Mass Action for Peace, a coalition of Christian and Muslim women who sat in public protest, confronting Liberia ’s ruthless president and rebel warlords, and even held a sex strike. With an army of women, Gbowee helped lead her nation to peace — in the process emerging as an international leader who changed history. Mighty Be Our Powers is the gripping chronicle of a journey from hopelessness to empowerment that will touch all who dream of a better world.

Video: Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee at the Social Enterprise Conference

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Leymah Gbowee, founder and executive director of the Women Peace and Security Network Africa, was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday. As her first public speaking event as a Nobel Laureate, she delivered the keynote address, in conversation with Harold Evans, editor at large at Thomson Reuters, at last Friday’s Columbia Business School Social Enterprise Conference. See video of the talk, as she discussed her incredible experience leading a grassroots women’s movement to end the 14-year civil war in Liberia.

 

Leymah Gbowee and the Journey for Peace

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By Kimberly Parker

After 14 years of civil war in Liberia, Leymah Gbowee and the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace, a coalition of Christian and Muslim women, barricaded the exit to stalled peace talks in Ghana and demanded a resolution. When Gbowee was threatened, she threatened back and began to take off her clothes to shame and curse the men who tried to intimidate her. Two weeks later, a peace treaty was signed.

We define revolutions in moments, but years of work, pain, and anger bring us to those moments. It was anger that guided Gbowee, and she knew she could use her anger for either good or bad. “You get angry, and you decide to put it into two containers — the good or the bad container… Those who decide to fight for peace…they were angry too, but they decided to put it in a good container,” she told MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

Gbowee, executive director and founder of the Women Peace and Security Network – Africa (WIPSEN-Africa), is one of the keynote speakers at this week’s Social Enterprise Conference and the subject of Pray the Devil Back to Hell, a film being screened on October 6. She is a Liberian and African peace activist, a social worker, the reluctant subject of a documentary, author of the recently published memoir: Mighty be our Powers: How Sisterhood, Prayer, and Sex Changed a Nation at War, and a mother of six.

On September 20, Gbowee spoke at the Clinton Global Initiative and is in the middle of an eight-city book tour, which is being financed from the personal funds of Leonard Riggio, chairman of Barnes and Noble. On October 7, she may also receive of the Nobel Peace Prize, despite the recent buzz over the Arab Spring.

After all of the accolades and numerous awards Gbowee has received, another defining moment in her life and career is approaching. On October 11, 2011 Liberia will hold its second free presidential elections since the end of the Civil War and the 2003 ousting of Dictator Charles Taylor. Gbowee has created a coalition of women from nine West African countries to monitor the elections. It is imperative that the elections are fair and peaceful in order to maintain the peace in Liberia for which Gbowee and so many others have fought so hard.

Leymah Gbowee was only 17 when the first civil war in Liberia started in 1989, 22 years ago. She has been fighting for peace almost as long, and will continue to fight, because it is a lifetime of work and dedication that brings us to those defining moments.