The model of perfection
LONDON, England (CNN) — Born in 1978 and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Liya Kebede attended the French Lycee in Addis. It was here that she was talent-spotted by a French film director and began her rise to supermodel status.
On finishing her schooling she moved to France where she joined a Parisian model agency. After three months she moved to Chicago to live with her brothers (she has four in total) and continued her nascent modeling career doing catalog work. It wasn’t until she moved to New York that Liya received her break into big time modeling.
In the fall of 2000, Designer Tom Ford handpicked her to walk the runway in Milan for his fall/winter Gucci collection. Soon she was walking the runways for Donna Karan, Chanel and Dolce and Gabbana.
In February 2003, Liya joined Elizabeth Hurley and Carolyn Murphy as the newest face of Estee Lauder. It was a significant moment in the company’s 60-year history, as Liya became the first black woman to front their global advertising campaigns for cosmetics.
Aerin Lauder, Vice President of Global Advertising Estée described Liya as someone who “defined modern beauty” and “has a global appeal, of interest to all ages and cultures”. The $3m contract cemented Liya’s place among fashion’s elite and she has gone on to appear on the covers of American, French, Italian, Spanish, Korean and Japanese Vogue, as well Numero, V, South African Elle, Harpers and Queen, Essence and Time Style and Design and Bazaar.
Away from the glamour of the catwalk, photo shoots and film sets – she has had minor roles in two Hollywood films – The Good Shepherd and Lord of War – Kebede has found time to concentrate on her other passion — working for charity.
“When I went back to Ethiopia, I wanted to do something. I wanted to give back.” Kebede told CNN. Married to Ethiopian hedge-fund manager, Kassy Kebede and a mother of two children herself — her boy Suhul is six years old and her daughter Raee is approaching her second birthday — Kebede was horrified to learn of the plight of millions of mothers and newborns in the developing world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that on average each day 1600 mothers die from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth and nearly 11 million children die each year before they reach their fifth birthday. A staggering four million babies die within the first 28 days of life.
In 2005 Kebede was handed a charitable platform when she was appointed WHO Goodwill Ambassador for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health. Her success in this role led to her being reappointed in March 2007.
This year Liya is working on a Global Mother’s Day campaign for WHO called “Make Your Mother’s Day, Every Day”. To mark Mother’s Day in the UK, Kebede met with Women Parliamentarians at the House of Commons in London in March 2007.
In addition to her work with WHO, Kebede has also set up the Liya Kebede Foundation, which raises funds for a range of organizations and services in Ethiopia. The Foundation is currently helping raise money for the Durame Hospital — to buy operating tables, bicycle ambulances and birthing kits; the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital — which helps to repair and restore the lives of women affected by obstetric fistula and for the Health Extension Program (HEP), which aims to provide universal coverage of primary health care.
“The more you do it [charity work], the more you realize how much you have to do it,” Kebede says, “Here we are today. But in a hundred years how do you want the world to be? Everybody should get together to make the world a better place.” www.liyakebede.com/foundation
LONDON, England (CNN) — Liya Kebede speaks to CNN about her experiences of seeing the pain and suffering of mothers and children on a recent trip to Ethiopia and how conditions are improving.
CNN: what is fistula?
Kebede: When a woman has her first child in places like Africa, they’re really young. They can be 12, 13,14, so their frames are really small and they’re usually malnourished. So their really tiny and once they’re pregnant and about to deliver they don’t have access to hospitals or trained assistants or a C-section unit. They deliver at home, all alone and with nothing. If there is a little complication and she can’t deliver the baby, because maybe he is too big for example, there is no other way for this baby to come out and she’ll stay in labor for 2, 3, 4, 5 days. The baby finally dies and then he comes out.
So now she has a dead baby in her hand but on top of that, because of all the pressure that the baby created with all the push and push and push, it creates a tear and she becomes incontinent. So she can’t control her bladder, she can’t control even other stuff and she starts leaking and smelling. She doesn’t really understand what’s happening to her. And some girls, because they are so devastated by it, stay in this crippling position and try to try to hold everything in for days on end, to the point where they almost get paralyzed. They usually become ostracized and they start living alone, they can’t even take the bus because nobody will put them on the bus because they smell and they’re leaking and its terrible.
All this happens to them because they don’t have access to a C-section. A C-section would basically solve everything. And of course the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital is one of the only hospitals in Ethiopia that fixes women with fistula. There’s almost a 90% success rate. It’s usually a very simple process, I think it costs about $400 a woman and Dr. Katherine Hamlin, who’s given all her life to this, has her team there and they fix these young girls. These are the young girls who are somehow lucky enough to somehow hear about the fact that they can be helped because most of these women don’t know that they can be helped. Some women have been like that for 20, 30 ,40 years.
There are about 9000 new cases of fistula every year in Ethiopia alone and the hospital cures about 2000 a year. We have to stop fistula from continuing and to do that women have to have access to healthcare, a hospital, a trained assistant and a C-section.
CNN: Tell us about the memories of walking through the hospital.
Kebede: This fistula hospital is a wonderful, wonderful hospital. It’s the cleanest hospital in the country, as ironic as that sounds because it is really difficult to keep it clean given the circumstances. It’s full of flowers and gardens and it’s clean and beautiful, what they really want to do is not only fix the girls physically, but they really want to help them emotionally come back to life. You know there are girls who stop speaking because of it, really there’s a whole emotional thing that happens with them.
Imagine you are a 14 year old and you’ve lost a baby and you’re all alone and it must be the most horrible thing that could happen to you. All of a sudden you come into this room full of other girls and who have been cured, some have stayed on to actually learn and help other women. Then you see others who have just been cured and go back to their villages, some come back to give birth again. So it’s a really wonderful place for these girls to get cured, to have hope again in life and to get their life back. So it’s a very sweet and sorrow place, where the ending is really beautiful and there is a lot of sad stories in between.
CNN: Tell us a little about the health extension workers?
Kebede: The health extension workers program is basically to train girls who are out of high school, so they’re about 18 years old. They get a year and a half or so of training in basic medical care so they’ll be giving vaccinations, they will monitor pregnant women. They will do family planning and give talks and lead discussions and all that stuff and even help with early marriage situations so they can come and consult with the women. They would weigh the baby once the baby was born. If there is a complicated pregnancy they’ll refer to a regional hospital so they will deliver in a hospital environment.
So they have a huge responsibility, and there will be two girls per village and I think there’s about 5000 people per village, so its 2 girls per 5000 people and they basically monitor and put all the data up, see who’s doing what, see how many kids are born, talk about family planning, about spacing your children, talk about breast-feeding and maybe not breast-feeding if its associated with AIDS. There are not enough doctors in those places and there aren’t enough hospitals. They are trying to weed out the basic stuff so that the more complicated stuff ends up in hospital, and the little things that can actually kill women and children can be reduced.
CNN: How does working as a spokesperson for the WHO and working for your foundation work?
Kebede: I’m a WHO Goodwill Ambassador, first and foremost and my responsibility as a goodwill ambassador is really to raise awareness, which we try to do. Everybody was really responsive and wanted to help, give back and participate and we didn’t really know how to include people. We started the foundation so people would have a way to donate money and participate in reducing the death of a mother and a child.
CNN: Were you surprised what you saw on your trip to Ethiopia with WHO?
Kebede: I still get surprised every time I go back. I mean I don’t think you understand the enormity of the situation or how really desperate it really is. I think its one thing to have an idea of what its like but then you actually start talking to them and you realize you have no idea, its really terrible.
CNN: How did the trip change you?
Kebede: The situation quickly becomes overwhelming and you realize how there’s so much that has to be done for something to be on a normal level cause they are not at a normal level on anything. Everything is a problem. So you see a family that has every problem in the world, but its really difficult to say well yes this is important to you because everything is important to this person and I think that’s really difficult. So when you go that’s something that disturbs you in a way.