SPRING 2018
“Just seeing his face again for me brings
back real, true, hard memories of that time
in my life,” she says. “Seeing his image
has just been haunting me.”
Self-forgiveness is another hill Amanda
must climb. She tries to stay strong in the
face of criticism regarding her decision to
travel within a country so dangerous in the
first place and of the unimaginable strain
she put her family through. Of that, she
says, “I’m still going through this process
of forgiveness with my family. It hasn’t
been easy to forgive myself. But at the
same time, I don’t want to beat myself up
for something I can’t change.”
BUILDING HER FUTURE
Instead, Amanda has devoted her life over
the past six years toward helping
disadvantaged women in Somalia through
her Global Enrichment Foundation.
Founded by Amanda in 2010, the
foundation’s Somali Women’s Scholarship
Program (SWSP) aims to send one
hundred women to university annually,
among other initiatives. In response to
questions about why she established the
foundation, Amanda told CBC’s The
National, “You can very easily go into
anger and bitterness and revenge thoughts
and resentment and ‘Why me?’...I had
something very, very large and very
painful to forgive, and by choosing to do
that, I was able to put into place my vision,
which was making Somalia a better place.”
In 2011, two years after her release, she
travelled to Kenya for several weeks to see
the Somali refugee camps firsthand – a trip
she terms part therapy and part research
for her charity. The fear she felt upon
seeing a road similar to the one from
which she was abducted, she says, was so
intense, it almost took her breath away.
Amanda revels in her positive energy now,
as evidenced by a November 2016
Facebook post that illustrates just how far
she has come. Alongside a cheeky
beachfront photo of her bare feet she
writes: “There is so much beauty in life
AMANDA LINDHOUT
that it’s hard to take it all in! Tears come
easily these days from a wellspring of
gratitude. I used to ask "Why me?" and
now I am asking "What is the gift?" I have
the opportunity to transform the painful
experiences in my life into healing, growth
and purpose.