Video: How Women Will Lead Us To Freedom, Justice and Peace

The former President of Liberia, Nobel laureate H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf promotes freedom, peace, justice, women’s empowerment and democratic rule.

“I was the first woman president of an African nation, and I do believe more countries ought to try that,” says H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Nobel laureate and former president of Liberia. Telling the story of how Liberian women helped rebuild their country after years of civil war, Sirleaf discusses why gender equality is essential to peace and prosperity — and shares her plan to uplift a generation of women prepared to take leadership positions and catalyze social change.

As Africa’s first democratically elected female president, H.E. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf led Liberia’s recovery following a decade-long civil war, and helped stem the nation’s Ebola crisis of 2014-2015. Recognized as a global leader for women’s rights, President Sirleaf was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2011.

President Sirleaf received the United States’s Presidential Medal of Freedom for her unwavering commitment to expanding freedom and improving the lives of Africans. Her many honors include the Grand Croix of the Légion d’Honneur (France’s highest public distinction) and being named one of Forbes‘s “100 Most Powerful Women in the World.”