Mali
Biography
Fatima is the current youngest Malian diplomat, a social entrepreneur and activist for girls’ education and women’s rights. She is currently serving as head of mission at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation. She is the founder of Tilwalte Girls Peace Network which empowers girls to be peace ambassadors through entrepreneurship, leadership and peace building trainings and those girls are back to their communities to create different peace building network throughout Mali. In addition to being an alumna of the Oxford Consortium on Human Rights, she was a MasterCard Foundation Scholar and also studied at the African Leadership Academy, Trinity College and Vienna University. She is One Young World and Orange Corners Enterprise for Peace Scholar. Fatima is the youngest 2010 YALI fellow (a fellowship for young African Leaders) Fatima is passionate about writing and her latest article “Feminization of African Politics “got published by Project Syndicate and translated in eight different languages.
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“According to UNICEF, in Mali, Burkina Faso, Indonesia, 400.000 girls are dropping out of school and 202.000 schools are closing due to the conflict. In Mali the terrorist groups attack women in their way to school, and it becomes a strategy as a weapon of war. The extremist groups are afraid of books and pens. They will speak out. The resolution 1325 promised girls and women that their voices and full involvement in peacebuilding and conflict resolution will be considered, and we need to empower woman in the times of conflict. Empowering girls is the key for development of our nation.”
Fatima Al Ansar