Angela Dorothea Merkel was born in Hamburg, West Germany, and grew up in Templin, East Germany (GDR – German Democratic Republic). As was expected of all the children growing up in the GDR, Merkel was a member of the communist Free German Youth movement. After graduating high school with the highest score possible in the German scoring system, she studied physics at the Karl Marx University in Leipzig, where she met her first husband, Ulrich Merkel. Though the couple divorced after five years of marriage, she kept his last name. In 1978, at the age of 24, Merkel joined as faculty of the Central Institute of Physical Chemistry of the Academy of Sciences in East Berlin. Several years later, she got her Ph.D. for her thesis on quantum chemistry. In late 1989, after the Berlin Wall fall, Merkel became involved with the newly formed Democratic Awakening party, and within a few months, she became its press spokesperson. In April 1990, the party merged with the East German Christian Democratic Union, and then it merged with its western counterpart, which then became the CDU (Christian Democratic Union of Germany). In the German federal election of December 1990, the first to be held after the German reunification, Merkel won a seat in the Bundestag (the lower house of the German parliament) as the Stralsund-Rügen-Grimmen representative and she was appointed the minister for women and youth. Merkel began to gain popularity and recognition for her work both as a party member and as a parliament member. In 1991, she got elected as deputy chairman of the CDU. Three years later, at the age of 40, she was named Minister for the Environment and Nuclear Safety, becoming the youngest minister in the cabinet, and in 1998 she was appointed Secretary-General of the CDU. On April 10th, 2000, when she was 46 years old, Merkel was elected as the leader of the CDU, becoming the first woman and first non-Catholic to serve in this position. In 2002, she was appointed Leader of the Opposition in the Bundestag. In this position, she advocated for labor laws reforms, a pro-market economic approach, and a close German-American partnership. In the national election of 2005, the CDU had reached a settlement with the other major parties to form a grand coalition government with Merkel at its head, and on November 22nd, 2005, at the age of 51, Merkel assumed the office of Chancellor of Germany, becoming the first woman, first Eastern German, and youngest person to hold the office. Her mandate got renewed three more times, serving in office for 16 years. During her tenure, Merkel has faced many national and international challenges, including the euro-zone debt crisis, the refugee crisis in which she kept Germany’s borders open, allowing more than a million Syrian refugees into the country, and the covid-19 pandemic. Over the years, she became the de facto leader of the European Union, facing confrontations such as the Russian annex of the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea and the Brexit. In 2018, Merkel stepped down as leader of the CDU and announced she wouldn’t run in the next federal elections. In 2021, she left parliament after 16 years as German Chancellor and one of the most important people in Global politics. Read more...

Waris Dirie was born near Galkayo, Somalia, one of twelve children in a nomadic herdsmen family. When she was five years old, she and two of her sisters underwent female genital mutilation (FGM) – female circumcision, a common practice in her tribal tradition. Growing up, she looked after the family’s herd, and by the age of 6, Dirie was responsible for taking about 60 goats and sheep to graze in the desert. At 13, her father had announced that she would marry a 60 years old man who traded her for five camels. Backed up by her mother, she managed to escape from her home. After a long and dangerous journey through the desert, she arrived at relatives in Mogadishu and from there to London, where she worked as a maid for her uncle, who was the Somali ambassador to the United Kingdom. When the uncle’s term ended, Dirie rented a room at the YMCA, earned her living as a cleaner in McDonald’s, and took English classes in the evenings. In 1983, at 18, she was spotted by the photographer Mike Goss who asked to take a picture of her. Soon after, she began to receive offers from casting agents. In 1987, 22 years old Dirie had her first big modeling job with the renowned fashion photographer Terence Donovan for the Pirelli Calendar. Afterward, her career took off with advertisements for Chanel, Revlon, and Levi’s, runway shows in New York, Milan, and Paris, and appearances in the top fashion magazines, including Vogue, Elle, and Glamour. In 1997, aged 32, at the pick of her modeling career, Dirie had an interview for Marie Claire magazine, in which she spoke for the first time about the FGM she had as a child. Following her brave testimony, she got nominated as a UN Special Ambassador against female genital mutilation. In this position, she traveled around the world, giving speeches on the subject of FGM, raising the global awareness of the act, and promoting her mission to prevent future generations of girls and women from suffering as she did. At the time, the World Health Organization estimated that more than 130 million women had undergone FGM, and in Somalia, Dirie’s homeland, 98% of the women had the procedure. In 1998, Dirie published her autobiography Desert Flower, in which she details her story as an FGM victim and her journey from a child bride in Somalia to a supermodel in the UK. The book became a bestseller, sold more than a million copies worldwide, and was adapted into a film and a musical. In the early 2000s, Dirie retired from modeling to dedicate her time to activism. In 2001, she founded the Desert Dawn Foundation, a non-profit organization that raises funds for clinics and schools in Somalia. The following year, she established the Waris Dirie Foundation that focused on abolishing FGM. In 2009, she co-founded the PPR Foundation for Women’s Dignity and Rights, and in 2013, she opened in Berlin the first holistic medical center in the world for the treatment and care of FGM victims, followed by other centers in Amsterdam, Stockholm, and Paris. Dirie continues to advocate for the cause, giving speeches in front of world leaders around the world urging them to take action against FGM that is still happening in many cultures around the globe. Read more...