About the Speaker
Kimmie
Weeks
Liberian children's rights activist
Kimmie Weeks is a Liberian children’s rights activist and former refugee. Drawing From his own near-death experience, Weeks co-founded Voice of the Future in 1994, Liberia’s first child rights advocacy and humanitarian organization. Facing death threats, Weeks escaped to the United States at the age of 17 and founded Youth Action International, expanding his relief work to war-torn countries throughout Africa. He’s also a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council and the Young Global Leaders Program. In 1996, he founded the Children’s Disarmament Campaign, which worked with UNICEF in the disarmament of Liberia’s 20,000 child soldiers. Weeks also created the Children’s Bureau of Information, the country’s first children’s information service, which helped to reintegrate former child soldiers into society through the use of radio broadcasts.