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Let's go back, for a moment, to author Carol Shaben’s desire to bring light to those “underrated individuals, who through their courage, heroism and conviction, deeply move and inspire us to be our best selves.“
Amanda Lindhout’s story does just that, in spades. Growing up dirt poor in Sylvan Lake, Alberta, with violence all around, her resilience was apparent at an early age. Moving to Calgary and waitressing to fund her travels, her first backpacking stint was through Venezuela and most of Central America. Her second was through Thailand, Burma, Bangladesh and even Afghanistan. By then, at twenty-five, she was “fully accustomed to the cycle of making money fast in a Canadian bar and then spending it slowly, as far out in the world as I could get.”
She developed her skills as a freelance photographer and wound up working as a journalist in Baghdad. A beginner at the trade, competition there was stiff, so she then moved onto Africa and Somalia, hoping to develop her skills, experience and marketability.
A mere four days in Mogadishu, she is kidnapped along with her Austrailian counterpart. Her story of this ordeal, the physical abuse and the ongoing mental anguish, will leave no person unmoved. It is a story of “courage, heroism and conviction”, not to mention a moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.
She is eventually released after a year and three months. Amanda’s story continues today with the conviction in a Canadian court of one of her assailants. As an insight into the strength of her character, I point you to the “Global Enrichment Foundation; Founded by Amanda Lindhout in May 2010. The Global Enrichment Foundation (GEF) is an incorporated non-profit organization that seeks to promote peace and development in Somalia through sustainable educational and community-based empowerment programs, while undertaking humanitarian and life-saving emergency interventions in times of crisis.”