Amanda Lindhout
Amanda Lindhout
Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian humanitarian, public speaker and journalist. On August 23, 2008, she and members of her entourage were kidnapped by Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia. She was released 15 months later on November 25, 2009, and has since embarked on a philanthropic career. In 2013, she released the New York Times bestseller A House in the Sky: A Memoir, in which she recounts her early life, travels as a young adult, and hostage experience. In 2014, the...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionJournalist
Date of Birth12 June 1981
CountryCanada
Women in Somalia face almost unimaginable oppression.
I used my captors names every chance I had. It was intentional, a way of reminding them that I saw them, of pegging them, of making them see me in return.
I am so proud to be a Canadian.
I, too, was carrying around my own fate. All the things I couldn't know sat somewhere inside, embroidered into me-maybe not quite fixed to the point of inevitability but waiting, in any event, for a chance to unspool.
I think that I find a lot of my healing out in the world.
I know firsthand how critical support systems are.
I'm afraid of elevators, because they are an enclosed space, but I get in.
I went through an extremely trying ordeal, but I never forgot the world outside was a beautiful place.
It was a slow understanding that the lack of education in a country like Somalia creates these huge social problems.
You have a responsibility to move your dreams forward, no matter what.
I must thank my good friend Nigel Brennan. His strength of character in the midst of extreme hardship inspired me during the darkest days. Despite our separation, he always managed to find small ways to remind me that there are gentlemen in the world, even when I was surrounded by just the opposite.
The greatest gift you have been given is the gift of your imagination - what do you dream of wanting to do?
When you see a 14-year-old boy who has never known what peace looks like for a day in his life, there's part of you as a human being that feels some degree, you can say, compassion for the fact that these boys have known war, famine, violence and death from the day they were born.
Sometimes, you have to make the choice to forgive 10 times a day when you have these pockets of anger come up. That's a lot of work, but to me it's worthwhile.