After fleeing her family, Dirie worked as a housemaid for a well-placed uncle in London, where she was discovered as a model and embarked on a successful career in fashion.

Through our Desert Flower Centers we try to help and guide victims of FGM to regain, as much as possible, their life quality and confidence. It's easy to forget that Dirie's memoir is a book about someone whose success has come from posing for the camera. She shared, in detail, her personal experiences as FGM was performed on her when she was only 5-years-old, as well as her painful issues while urinating and menstruating as she grew older.The BBC commissioned the programme “A Nomad in New York”, based on Waris Dirie for their series “The day that changed my life”. Today she is fighting as UN Ambassador against female genital mutilation, which happens to 8,000 girls every day. Petersburg in a Winnebago to interview prostitutes, and running down a Brazilian mountain at midnight fleeing bandits. She’s an accomplished public speaker who has performed at numerous venues, including Cinequest, LitQuake, the Ford Foundation, the United Nations Foundation, the Women, Peace and Conflict Lecture and Film Series, and the American Women’s Association of Rome. I read it within 24 hours, and found myself mesmerised by this womans story, and how she overcame obstacles that most of us wouldn't dream of, to get to where she is today.

In reality, Safa is still not cut and Waris Dirie is horrified, as she gets informed that the cutting ritual is imminent. Milijonai mergaičių ir moterų kenčia nuo šio žiauraus papročio, tad bet kokios pastangos, galinčios paskatinti tokių veiksmų stabdymą, mano nuomone, turi būti labai vertinamos.I was under the impression that this memoir strongly focused on the author's experiences with FGM and her work with the Desert Flower Foundation to advocate for women's rights in Africa. Tenses are inconsistent, vocabulary is childish and vulgar, and some information is disorganized, inaccurate and/or missing! The Desert Flower Foundation and all its campaigns, projects and activities are financed by private donations. I found this book in “full flight”; the author is on the move constantly, making the book suffer from a lack of contemplation.

Female genital mutilation targets little girls, baby girls – fragile angels who are helpless, who cannot fight back. Meiner Meinung nach ist die Geschichte auf Englisch etwas anders, aber es lässt sich wirklich super lesen und auch wenn man ein paar Wörter auf anhieb nicht ganz versteht, kann man sich das zm. UN Ambassador Waris Dirie shows herself from a very personal side: as a tireless fighter against the ritual mutilation of women – mainly because of her own, painful experience. It is a hard read but well worth leaning of the horrific torture young girls go through because of tribal ceremonies. Through projects like “Save a little desert flower”, which seeks to protect little girls in Africa from FGM.

Tai šokiruojanti labai drąsios merginos gyvenimo istorija – žygis per pasaulį iš Somalio genties į šiuolaikinę visuomenę.

An important book that manages to pass its message without melodramatics and exaggerations, talking about the difficulties but above all about the joy of life. That same year, she was appointed UN Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation(FGM).After such a long time in the western world, Waris's arrival in her homeland, most of all her reunion with her mother and also the dispute with her former life, will be a personal challenge for her. There are probably more victims of FGM than of wars in some areas- and the victims are mostly little girls. In the fascinating resumption of her autobiography “Desert Flower”, Waris Dirie conveys a compelling and touching picture of life in Somalia: on the one hand, a great variety of traditions but on the other hand, the archaic distribution of roles, which particularly puts the country´s women in chains. Produced by Peter Herrmann and Benjamin Herrmann, the Ethiopian supermodel Liya Kebede plays Waris in the title role. At the end of this affecting and at times very entertaining book, Dirie's metamorphosis from desert nomad into jetsetting nomad culminates in a post as a human rights ambassador to the UN, where, these days, Dirie campaigns for the eradication of female circumcision and women's rights around the globe.