Aminata Conteh-Biger - Power for good

When Aminata Conteh-Biger speaks, people listen. It has taken some time and much soul-searching to fi nd her voice, but now the Sierra Leone refugee, war survivor, storyteller and advocate is telling her story

- SHEVONNE HUNT

Aminata Conteh-Biger grew up surrounded by the mountains and red dust of Freetown in Sierra Leone. She remembers the smell of the dust after the rain, baking bread in the morning and her father’s favourite leather chair in their family home. It was a comfortable life, one full of love and security.

Conteh-Biger was raised by her father. She describes him as a generous, humble man and one of the biggest influences on her life: “He wanted to treat every single person equally, but he was firm. And he was gentle and vulnerable. All of that in one person; we were very blessed to have that sort of example.”

Her father was foundational in making Conteh-Bger who she is and shaping how she sees the world. “What he really left me, that I’ve always carried, is the value of human beings, not the value of material things,” she says. He taught her integrity and belief in herself, but above all a respect for human life. “He really wanted us to know that at the end of the day, you speak to the beggar in the street in the same tone as you speak to the man in the mansion. So, for me, I love you but I respect you first. That’s the key: you respect people first, before you’re capable of loving them,” she says.

Finding light in the darkness

In 1999, when Conteh-Biger was just 18, the civil war that had been raging for eight years arrived in Freetown. From her window she could see her neighbour’s homes burning and people slaughtered on the streets.