Waris Dirie Waris Dirie (Somali: Waris Diiriye, Arabic: ) (born in 1965) is a Somali model,author, actress and human

rights activist. Early years Waris Dirie was born into a nomadic clan in Galkayo, Somalia in 1965.[1] At the age of thirteen, she fled her family in order to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man. She landed in London where she lived with and worked for wealthy relatives. Waris later worked at a local McDonald's, trying to make ends meet after war broke out in her country causing the closure of the Somalian Embassy where she had previously worked. Career By chance, Waris was discovered by photographer Terence Donovan, who helped secure for her the cover of the 1987 Pirelli Calendar. From there, her modeling career took off, appearing in advertisements for top designers such as Chanel, Levi's, L'Oral and Revlon. In 1987, Waris played a minor role in the James Bond movie The Living Daylights. She also appeared on the runways of London, Milan, Paris and New York City, and in fashion magazines such as Elle, Glamour and Vogue. This was followed in 1995 by a BBC documentary entitled A Nomad in New York about her modeling career. In 1997, at the height of her modeling career, Waris spoke for the first time with Laura Ziv of the women's magazine Marie Claire about the female genital mutilation (FGM) that she had undergone as a child, an interview which received worldwide media coverage. That same year, Waris became a UN ambassador for the abolition of FGM, and later paid her mother a visit in her native Somalia. In 1998, Waris authored her first book, Desert Flower, an autobiography which went on to become an international bestseller.[2] She later released other successful books including Desert Dawn, Letter To My Mother, and Desert Children, the latter of which was launched in tandem with a European campaign against FGM. In 2009, a feature-length film based on Waris' book Desert Flower was released, with the Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kebede playing her.[3] The movie has so far been released in 20 countries including France, Spain, Israel, Greece, Poland and Brazil. In January 2010, it won the Bavarian Film Awards in Munich in the Best Movie category.[4] It was also nominated for a Film Award in Gold in theOutstanding Feature Film category at the German Film Awards, and won the Audience Award in the Best European Film category at the San Sebastin International Film Festival.[5] In 2010, Waris was appointed Peace Ambassador for the Year of Peace and Security by the African Union.[6] Attack and disappearance In March 2004, Waris was attacked in her home in Vienna, Austria. Paulo Augusto, a 26year-old Portuguese man, was held in custody after having apparently stalked her some 1,000 miles across Europe, eventually gaining access to her apartment by climbing through a neighbour's window. "She was so frightened and in shock that she let him in," a police spokesman said. Dirie apparently suffered minor injuries when her assailant threw her to the floor. The attacker then left in a taxi, only to return later on foot to smash one of the building's ground-floor windows. He was arrested when neighbours called the police,[7] and was later given a five month suspended sentence by an Austrian court. [8] It was reported that the suspect had met Dirie six months earlier when his brother was

working at her previous residence in Wales. He later broke into that home and stole items of her clothing.[9] In another incident, during the early hours of Wednesday, March 5, 2008, Waris went missing for three days while staying in Brussels,Belgium. She was found alive on Friday, March 7, 2008 by a Brussels policeman.[8] Personal life Contrary to popular belief, Waris is not related to fellow Somali model Iman. In her book Desert Flower, Waris states that Iman's mother was good friends with her aunt, a relative with whom Waris once lived during her time in London. In March 2005, Waris acquired Austrian citizenship.[10] Besides Vienna, she also lives in Gdansk, Poland.[11] Humanitarian work, awards and honours In 1997, Waris abandoned her modeling career to focus on her work against female circumcision. That same year, she was appointed UN Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation.[12][13] In 2002, she founded the Desert Flower Foundation inVienna, Austria, an organization aimed at raising awareness regarding the dangers surrounding FGM. Waris followed that in January 2009 with the establishment of the PPR Foundation for Womens Dignity and Rights, an organization she founded along with French tycoon Franois-Henri Pinault (CEO of PPR) and his wife, Hollywood actress Salma Hayek.[14] Waris has also started the Desert Dawn Foundation, which raises money for schools and clinics in her native Somalia,[2] and supports the Zeitz Foundation, an organization focused on sustainable development and conservation. Waris has received many prizes and awards for her humanitarian work and books including:

Woman of the Year Award (2000) by Glamour Magazine.[15] Corine Award (2002) of the umbrella association of the German bookselling trade. [16] Women's World Award (2004) from former President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev.[17] Bishop scar Romero Award (2005) by the Catholic Church. Chevalier de la Lgion dHonneur (2007) from the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy.[18] Prix des Gnrations (2007) by the World Demographic Association.[19] Martin Buber Gold Medal from the Euriade Foundation (2008),[20] founded by Werner Janssen in 1981. Gold medal of the President of the Republic of Italy (2010) for her achievements as a human rights activist.

Somalia's Desert Flower Her story is the stuff of fiction: the daughter of Somali desert nomads, Waris ("desert flower" in Somali) Dirie fled her family when she was about 13 to escape marriage to a man old enough to be her grandfather. She landed in London as a servant to wealthy relatives and worked as a cleaner at McDonald's before becoming a supermodel, a James Bond girl, a U.N. special ambassador and a best-selling writer. Her second book, Desert Dawn, was published in Britain last week. Hard to believe? Only until you meet Dirie. A warm but somehow elusive woman in her mid-30s she doesn't know her age, nomads having little use for calendars and clocks she radiates a luminous beauty with a whiff of the wild and free. Dirie is strikingly attractive, but her dramatic rags-to-riches journey was fueled not just by looks, but also by resilience. She calls it the power of the spirit. "I felt the power," she says when relating how she overcame some crisis or other in her life. "Believe in yourself, and nothing can stop you." That strength sustained her when she nearly died after being circumcised at the age of about five with a dirty razor blade. It saw her through her desert escape and the vagaries of a frenetic life on the international modeling circuit. Dirie wrote about all this in Desert Flower, her 1998 autobiography, which topped the British, German (1.75 million copies) and Dutch best-seller lists. In Desert Dawn, which was written with Jeanne D'Haem and first published in Germany a few months ago, she tells of her horrific journey last year to find her mother, who lives in a village in her poverty-stricken homeland. Dirie found spiritual nourishment in her family's courage, faith and humor, but also much to distress her. She writes movingly of Somalia's dire poverty and of the problems caused by the entrenched attitudes of its tribal culture, which keep the country divided and so often in turmoil. Especially troubling to her is how these views ensure that women have few rights and remain subjugated by men. Dirie has been speaking out about one aspect of this subjugation: female circumcision, practiced on 2 million girls a year, most of them in 28 African countries but also in immigrant communities in Europe and the U.S. The U.N. appointed her in 1997 as a special ambassador to seek an end to this practice, after she caused a furor by suddenly revealing her own experience to a reporter. Talking about such intimate personal details is excruciating for her, but she vows she won't stop. Sustaining her now is not only the power of the spirit but also her five-year-old son, Aleeke, whom she calls "the light of my life." Now parted from his American jazz musician father, Dirie is currently living with Aleeke in Wales. She is vague about her future plans excited about a proposal for a National Geographic documentary on Somalia but uncertain about staying in Britain. "I can enjoy anywhere, and I can leave it," she says. "Life is about moving on." She is, as she adds, a nomad after all. Q&A TIME: Has any progress been made in stopping female circumcision? Dirie: It's a subject that is increasingly talked about, and more women are campaigning against it all the time. But there is a long way to go, and things move slowly. You have to change attitudes. But apartheid was ended in South Africa it can happen. TIME: How were you different from your siblings? Dirie: I always wanted to know the reasons for things and didn't like when I was smacked for asking or pushed away or ignored. So I became my own person. I was considered different. Inside I felt I was right. TIME: Do you regret giving up modeling? Dirie: No, life is about changes, and I had better things to do. It was fun, but it was meaningless. It's sad how many girls in the West make modeling their dream and goal. They should keep a focus on something else at the same time. TIME: And the movie Elton John was going to make of your life? Dirie: That has faded out. TIME: What next? Dirie: I have started the Desert Dawn Foundation to raise money for schools and clinics in Somalia. What I saw there broke my heart. These people have nothing, really nothing.