Interview with the 2011 peace laureate Leymah Gbowee, recorded on 28 March 2025 during the Nobel Prize Teacher Summit in Stockholm, Sweden.

Why is it important that women are included in solving conflicts?  

Leymah Gbowee: Because it’s not that women are more peaceful. Women are more thoughtful. So in solving conflict, most times the conversation is primarily around militarism, power and all of those things. And women are the ones who come to the table with conversations about reopening hospitals and schools and providing food and shelter and safety zone for the vast majority of the people. That’s why it’s important, because women bring the human side of the conflict on the table. Most often it is forgotten when men are in that space of arguing about power.  

How do you define peace? 

Leymah Gbowee: Peace for me is not the absence of war. Peace is the presence of conditions that give dignity to all of us – conditions like housing, everything – peace is the presence of those conditions that give dignity to all. 

Where do you find the energy to carry on with your work for peace and women’s rights? 

Leymah Gbowee: I come from a continent and a nation with many vices, but I’ve come to realise that it’s not the vices that we live through that define who we are. It’s not just me. There are many women who would never have the opportunity to sit on this couch, that are constantly doing work to transform their communities. They wake up every morning without any funding, without any opportunity to travel. Some of them operate in spaces where they don’t even have food, where the security is at risk, but they keep at it. They keep at it because for them, this is the insurance policy for their daughters and for their sons. Most times I look at these women and I tell myself, if they, with all of the challenges in their lives, are not giving up, who am I to give up? That thought alone is all of the energy booster that I need to keep going because I recognise that I’m a part of a community of women who are moving in spite of their circumstances. I too have to keep moving.  

What other peace activists inspire you? 

Leymah Gbowee: I would say all of my sister laureates, women who have won the peace prize. But I am also inspired by those women at the community level who are consistently working for peace and have no salary or anything, but they’re still working. 

Do you have a memory of a teacher who influenced you? 

Leymah Gbowee: I had a teacher who was very strict. I had done his test, but the entire semester I did not speak up in his class because I had no self-confidence. When I did my assignment, he gave me an F and when I looked at it, I was petrified because even though I hadn’t spoken up in his class, I knew that I was brilliant. I went to him, very scared because again, I had no self-esteem, and I said to him, “You graded my paper without reading it. You only saw my name and gave me an F.” I got it back a week later and I had an A. But the reason why it’s memorable to me is one; because he was willing to give me a second chance, two; after that encounter, he would sit me down and say, “If you don’t use your voice, people will speak for you. And people would make decisions for you. And people will judge you based on your silence.” That’s the reason why I remember him, because that moment of the assignment was a turning point in my life. I think it’s basically one of those things that shaped me into being the activist that I am today. 

What message do you want to share with teachers? 

Leymah Gbowee: One of the most important things is that we often think that everyone stands in a cubicle all by themselves, which is not true. The world is at a place now where we have to move away from our silo kind of operations into a more collaborative. I think you can’t talk peace without teachers.  Again, I usually tell people that for me, after years of doing peace work, peace is not just the absence of war, it’s the presence of conditions that give dignity to people. I think it’s important for teachers to interact with people of all fields, so that there’s an understanding that we are mentoring, we are raising, the next generation of young people who understand what dignity is. Because in the absence of dignity, people get disenchanted. It leads to violence and in most instances they lead to war. We all have a role to play in keeping our world safe, in keeping our nations safe, but also in creating or mentoring the next generation of peace builders. 

What advice would you give to aspiring activists? 

Leymah Gbowee: The first thing is to find what you’re passionate about, because activism is like a vast ocean. There’s housing, there’s reproductive rights, there’s trans/gay issues, there’s peace issues. There’s all kinds of issues that fit in the activist world. The first thing a person needs to do is recognise that I’m passionate about this, because your passion is the fuel or the vehicle. Your anger is the fuel that you need to move from one point to the other. The second thing is that you should always have ideas, because once you’re doing anything that you’re passionate about, the ideas come. You don’t need to borrow ideas from anyone. I think the final thing is just staying focused. But remember that if you’re coming to be an activist because you want to make money: no. 

What achievements are you most proud of? 

Leymah Gbowee: I am most proud of the fact that even with the peace prize, I can still work at local community levels. I can still go to national levels and go to the international levels. So I’m proud of the fact that I’m able to transcend different levels of society to do work.  

What are your hopes for the future? 

Leymah Gbowee: My hope is that we will see less and less conflicts in our world, but that women will not have to consistently make cases for why they’re necessary for peace, for justice, for politics. That it would become natural as breathing for women to get strong positions in authority. 

Watch the interview

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