Iman, supermodel, activist, refugee

http://www.enoughproject.org/iman-interview  

The world knows Iman as a supermodel, a successful businesswoman with her own cosmetics company and as a fashion icon alongside her husband David Bowie. That’s only half the story. Iman also is a refugee whose family fled war in Somalia. In this exclusive interview in honor of International Women’s Day, Iman shares her incredible story of leaving Somalia for Kenya, being discovered by a fashion photographer, and finding global fame.

On International Women’s Day, as we celebrate the achievements of women and raise awareness of ongoing injustices against women, Iman’s success story is poignant, especially in light of the causes she fights for.

"Iman has been a fierce advocate for the rights of women and children in Africa and around the world. Her own experience as a refugee and a mother has deepened her commitment to contributing to a world where violence against women and girls is one day a thing of the past," notes Enough Project Co-Founder John Prendergast.

Iman is a Global Ambassador for Keep a Child Alive, http://keepachildalive.org/ raising awareness and funds to help African families affected by HIV/AIDS. She was instrumental in the campaign against blood diamonds, terminating her contract with diamond giant DeBeers in protest over the diamond industry’s abuses in Africa. Iman is speaking up for the Congo as well, helping the Enough Project’s “Raise Hope for Congo” campaign 
http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/ spread the word about the new blood diamonds: “conflict minerals” from the Congo.

As Iman and John discuss in the video, the deadliest war in the world is raging in the Congo right now. Over five million people have died, but that’s just part of the horror.

Enough co-founder, John Prenderast had ths to say about her, "Iman has been a fierce advocate for the rights of women and children in Africa and around the world. Her own experience as a refugee and a mother has deepened her commitment to contributing to a world wher violence against women and girls is one day a thing of the past." On International Women's Day, as we celebrate the achievements of women and raise awareness of ongoing injustices against women,

Iman's success story is poignant, especially in light of the causes she fights for. She is a Global Ambassador for Keep a Child Alive, raising awareness and funds to help African families affected by HIV/AIDS. She was instrumental in the campaign against blood diamonds, terminating her contrct with diamond giant, DeBeers, in protest over the diamond industry's abuses in Africa.

Iman is speaking up for the Congo as well, helping the Enough Project's "Raise Hope for Congo" campaign spread the word about the new blood diamonds: "conflict minerals" from the Congo. As Iman and John discuss in the video, the deadliest war in the world is ragins in the Congo right now. Over five million people have died, but that's just part of the horror. Keep reading about Iman's work with Enough. and learn more about conflict minerals.

Congo is the world’s most dangerous place for women and girls. Armed groups are using mass rape as a tactic of war as they compete to control Congo’s lucrative mineral wealth: tin, tantalum, tungsten (the “three Ts”) and gold.

Why are these minerals so coveted?

Cell phones, laptops, digital cameras and other devices wouldn’t work them. Armed groups make an estimated $150 million yearly from the conflict minerals trade. It’s a simple supply and demand equation, and it’s fueling the worst violence since the Holocaust. The good news is, we have the power to help end it. We as consumers must speak up and demand that the top electronics companies produce conflict-free products. By removing conflict minerals from the equation in Congo, we remove the fuel from the fire.

To help, visit the Raise Hope for Congo take action page, http://www.raisehopeforcongo.org/special-page/take-action-congo where you can send a personal email to the top electronics companies http://www2.americanprogress.org/t/1659/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=6265 .
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A full transcript of the interview 

http://www.enoughproject.org/iman-interview-transcript .

"My parents were these young activists, both my mother and father, and they were very young. My parents got married when he, my father, was 17 and she was 14 and they eloped. I never knew that we were poor. Because we were actually poor. I never went to bed hungry, and I've always had a mat on the floor to sleep on."

TEXT: Iman's father became a diplomat and life improved, but the family would soon be uprooted by war.

"I started my life at the beginning poor but not aware of it and became an ambassador's daughter. I knew that we lived in a totally different lifestyle than a lot of people that I knew. And then like overnight in 1969 there was a revolution in Somalia, and the whole country was complete lockdown, and of course all the embassies were shut down. And within, I would say a month, people literally were being either executed or arrested. A lifetime arrest.

"My mother got very very worried that soon it will happen the same thing to my father and we would be the same fate. So she decided one night in the middle of the night that she would just rent a van and didn't tell us and woke us up in the middle of the night like around 3 AM, pushed us, shoved us in this van, and we crossed the border of Kenya by foot. So overnight, my life transformed, was totally transformed from an ambassador's daughter to a refugee.

"For all the money I have made in this country, there's one thing that I can never ever be able to give my parents, and that's for them to go back home in their old age and die there in Somalia and be buried there. So for them, they're refugees for life, you know? So people don't understand how heavy that weighs on families. I could never forget how dehumanizing it feels, not to beg but to be helpless. And for me who, I, as I said, I'm my father's daughter, I'm very close to my dad. To see him in that condition broke my heart. Literally broke my heart.

"The frustration that you can see in my father's eye and my parents' eye, the humility and the loss of everything. I mean, we left, my parents left with one picture of each of us. One picture. We left our families. We left our friends. We left our heritage, culture. So I've always tried to really make people understand what refugees are, you know? Because I am one."

TEXT: Fashion photographer Peter Beard discovered Iman in Kenya in 1975. She came to the US, where her experience as a refugee influenced her professional goals and philosophy.

"And then one day, lo and behold, while I was crossing on my way to the campus, this photographer by the name Peter Beard stopped me and said, 'Have you ever been photographed before?' Mind you I've never seen fashion magazines in my life, I've never worn makeup or heels for that matter. So I had no idea what he was talking about. But I thought, 'Oh God, here we go, another white man who thinks Africans have never seen a camera before, have never been photographed.' I said, 'Yes, I have.' And he said, 'What magazine?' And I said, 'My parents'.'"

"And he said, 'I'd like to take your pictures.' And as I walked, kept on walking, he said the magic word. He said, 'I'll pay you.' And I said, 'Well, how much?' He said, 'Well, how much do you want?' And I right then and there on the streets of Nairobi, on my way to campus, I made my first modeling transaction. And I said $8000 because that was the tuition. And a couple of months later, he brought the pictures to America and they called for me and I have been here since then.

"At the time when I came to America, everybody used to say, 'Oh she's beautiful as the girl next door.' That usually applied to a blonde, blue-eyed (woman), you know? And as the neighborhoods changed, the girl next door changed.

"And then I changed what the language of what women of color in this country mean. Women of color in this country usually was just for black women. So I created the language of women with skin of color, that meaning Latinas, Asians, Native Americans, you know, that whole spectrum of people."

TEXT: As a mother, Iman advocates for both the parents and children of Africa, working with the Keep a Child Alive foundation on AIDS prevention and with the Enough Project to raise awareness of the war in the Congo.

"Being a refugee, and being a child refugee, although a teenager, it never left me how the kids are the ones who fall through the cracks usually. Women and children fall through the cracks. It's the most disheartening thing for me as an African to hear about orphans. I've never heard in my Somalia about orphans. There was always a family member who took somebody in if their parents died. I've never heard of an orphan.

"The problem is we need to save Mom and Dad. Those children, as much as they want love, anybody to love them, it's more important for us to save Mom and Dad. And it is possible for us to save Mom and Dad."

TEXT: This is particularly urgent in the Congo, where the world's deadliest war is raging. The rate of sexual violence in the Congo is the highest in the world. It's the most dangerous place on Earth to be a woman or a girl.

"It's not lost on me that what sustains the continent of Africa, is really starts with women, you know? And the fabric of that is being really destroyed. The conflict of what it's really happ - what it's doing morally - on the violence, the sexual violence, the rape. The rape of women and children in Congo is the rape of a whole continent and a whole country. When families and communities are destroyed in that way, there is a moral issue at stake, you know? And people keep it on for generations and generations, you know? All of them need an Enough time, you know? We all need a point of just saying, 'OK, enough of this now.'"

"The African women ... and I would say especially in Congo, they know what they need. It's not for us, all of us to decide for them on the outside of what they need. What they need is help for, so that we can structure for them what is available to them. So they can start again their communities. Obviously one of the, one is to stop the violence against women and children, you know. But also, as we're talking about is building communities, you know. It's building infrastructures, it's building small businesses for themselves."

TEXT: The illicit trade of minerals essential to phones and other electronics fuels the Congo's war. Iman helped raise awareness of a similar issue- blood diamonds- by terminating her contract as the face of the diamond company De Beers.

"I could not literally say that I could live, I could sleep and I could say, 'Yes, I'll take that money,' because everybody says they're not sure. But I know I would be clear conscience if I don't be part of it. So I terminated my contract. So what I'm saying, it's very easy for, for everybody, if they really want to have a conscience, is just ask. Make that call and ask, that we want these phones to be not part of that conflict."

TEXT: You can help end war in the Congo. Commit to purchase conflict-free phones, laptops and other electronics. Visit www.raisehopeforcongo.org  to email your commitment to the top electronics companies.

Contact:
Enough Project 
1225 Eye Street NW, Suite 307 
Washington, D.C. 20005 USA

*Enough is a project to end genocide and crimes against humanity.
  For more information, go to: www.enoughproject.org . 

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