Forgiveness. That was the powerful but somewhat unlikely message coming from Amanda Lindhout to the crowd of hundreds of junior high and high school students who had gathered in the gymnasium at William D. Cuts yesterday morning.
During a special assembly, the 31-year-old humanitarian and former journalist talked about how anybody, even a girl from Red Deer as she called herself, can make positive and significant change in the world. It all starts from within yourself, she said.
“No matter where I’m talking,” the busy Lindhout began, “I always make sure to include the thread about forgiveness. I feel really strongly that it’s a message that the world needs to hear. I’m passionate about it. It’s been life-changing for me.”
She said that without forgiveness, she wouldn’t be who she is today. She might not even be alive.
The year was 2008 and the place was Somalia, the east African country ravaged by war, strife and drought.
While working as a freelance reporter in the southern part of the country, she was kidnapped by a group of armed teenage militant insurgents. For 460 days, she was held hostage and suffered abuse and malnutrition to the point where she lost patches of hair and teeth, some of her toenails even fell out. She endured dysentery and stomach ailments.
During the last 10 months of her captivity, she was shackled and confined by herself in what she called “the dark house,” a room devoid of any light.
With all that time, she said all she could do was think and feel. She came to know her kidnappers, one even confessing that he didn’t want to be a soldier. They were teenagers after all, lost children of a conflict that they didn’t understand and that had made them orphans.
Her defining moment, she elaborated, was unexpected.
“It happened when one of these teenage boys was hurting me, and I was so angry. I was so full of anger and so full of rage. I found myself at a breaking point. It was a really scary moment. I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
What came next was an emotional or psychological shift, but its physical effects were undeniable, proof that she says that real change comes from within.
“Just at the moment that I was about to snap, the most amazing thing happened. This warm feeling came over me very quickly and I became very calm. I felt detached from the pain that my body was in. I began to understand who this boy was.”
It is fair to say that she probably knows more about forgiveness than most people.
“Up until that point of having that realization, there had been an accumulation of all of those sorts of negative emotions you’d expect to have in that situation: the bitterness, the anger, the ‘why me’ feelings. I don’t think a person can go through their life like that. I don’t know what would have happened to me if I hadn’t had that revelation about forgiveness. I don’t think I’d be here.”
Bellerose student Taylor Anderson was one of the audience members. She remarked that Lindhout’s message was powerful and relevant to everyone, especially in how people can change their perspective and find good in even the worst situations.
“Just having that other point of view, of realizing what happens to other people, and why they make their choices, does make you look at things a different way.”
It took the school’s Grade 9 Leadership class about 18 months to organize this presentation. They spent 18 months fundraising to collect the $4,000 speaker’s fee, all of which will be donated to Lindhout’s charity.
Mere months after her return to Canada, she created the Global Enrichment Foundation out of her desire to make a positive change in the country that still has so many political and social troubles. The foundation focuses on empowering women through educational opportunities, offering micro financing for small businesses and other community-based solutions.
So far, the foundation has helped to feed thousands of people. It was the first organization on the ground with relief after the United Nations declared a famine in the country last July.
