The accomplishments of Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee

Leymah Gbowee is someone that most people, including Tunde Folawiyo, will be familiar with. Gbowee is an advocate for women's rights and a peace activist, who is perhaps best known for founding and serving as the president of an organisation called the Gbowee Peace Foundation.

Whilst she has achieved many things throughout her life, her greatest accomplishment to date has been the establishment of a non-violent movement, which saw Muslim and Christian women assembling around Liberia to help end the civil war which had ravaged the country for more than 14 years. In 2002, Gbowee's work in this area led to her being named as the leader and spokesperson for the Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace. The women that she asked to participate in this movement held daily sit-ins and demonstrations, in order to protest against the injustices being carried out by the president Charles Taylor.

Today, in addition to running the aforementioned Peace Foundation, Gbowee also serves as the WIPSEN-Africa's executive director. Her role in this organisation is to offer guidance and support to a network of female peace-builders who are currently working in counties around Liberia. Gbowee has been a panellist at many important international and regional conferences, including the Arria Formula Meeting, held by the UN's Security Council, and the DDRR Process, arranged by UNIFEM.

In 2008, she served as the central character and narrator for 'Pray the Devil Back to Hell', a documentary which shares audio and film clips from the Liberian war. This work has since been used as an advocacy tool in both post-conflict and conflict zones around the world, including Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan and Bosnia. At the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, it was named as the 'Best Documentary Feature'.

Her activism work has won Gbowee numerous awards over the years; Tunde Folawiyo may recall that in 2007, the Harvard University Women's Leadership Board gave her the Blue Ribbon Peace Prize for her contributions to peace-building. Then in 2008, she received the Leaders of the 21st Century Award, and the following year, she won the Profile in Courage Award. In 2010, she was given the John Jay Medal for Justice, and in 2011, she was award the Nobel Peace Prize.

The life of Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai was an environmental and political activist, who is perhaps best known for being the first woman from Africa to win the Nobel Peace Prize, a feat which she accomplished in 2004. She received the award for her outstanding contributions to sustainable peace, democracy and development.

Tunde Folawiyo, and others who are familiar with her career, may know that Maathai was also the first woman in all of Central and East Africa to complete a doctorate, and was the first female professor to work in a Kenyan university. In addition to her academic achievements, Maathai wrote four books, entitled 'Replenishing the Earth', 'The Challenge for Africa', 'Unbowed: A Memoir', and 'The Green Belt Movement'.

Born in 1940, in Nyeri Kenya, Maathai completed her undergraduate studies at Atchison's Mount St. Scholastica College, after which she moved to the USA, in order to attend the University of Pittsburgh. In 1966, after being awarded a Master of Science degree from this institute, Maathai returned home, where she obtained a PhD at the University of Nairobi.

Shortly after this, during the early 1970s, she decided to establish a non-governmental environmental organisation called the Green Belt Movement, which focused on women's rights, conservation and the planting of trees. The GBM began to spread to other countries around the continent, eventually resulting in 30 million trees being planted. More than three decades after it was first launched, the GBM, and Maathai became the subject of a documentary made by Marlboro productions, entitled 'Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai'.

Tunde Folawiyo, and others who have heard of Maathai, may recall that her work won her the Right Livelihood Award in 1986 and, as mentioned above, the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 . In regards to the latter, the Norwegian Nobel Committee praised Maathai for her bravery in choosing to protest against the oppressive regime in Kenya, and noted that her work had led to a greater awareness of political oppression, not only in her native country, but in other nations around the world. The committee described her as an 'inspiration'.

Twelve years after receiving the latter, she became the founder of the Nobel Women's Initiative, which she ran with other female laureates, including Mairead Corrigan, Betty Williams, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Shirin Ebadi and Jody Williams. She also worked on the AWEPA (Association of European Parliaments with Africa) Advisory Board up until 2011, when she passed away.