The challenges of growing up black and female in apartheid South Africa has led Naomi Tutu to her present role as an activist for human rights. Her experiences have taught her how much we all lose when any of us is judged purely on physical attributes.
The third child of Archbishop Desmond and Nomalizo Leah Tutu, she was born in South Africa and has also lived in Lesotho, the United Kingdom and the United States. Growing up as the “daughter of …” has offered her many opportunities and challenges in her life. Most important of these has been the challenge to find her own place in the world. She has taken up the challenge and channeled the opportunities that she has been given to raise her voice as a champion for the dignity of all.
Her professional experience ranges from being a development consultant in West Africa to a program coordinator for race and gender-based violence in education at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. In addition, Tutu has taught at the University of Hartford and Brevard College in North Carolina. She also leads workshops on conflict resolution and racism. She earned her bachelor’s in economics and French from Berea College and her master’s in international economic development from the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Economic Development from the University of Kentucky. She was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Universal Orthodox College of Ogun State, Nigeria, in 1985. She is currently working on her doctorate at the London School of Economics, while teaching at the School of Education at the University of Connecticut. She is also the program coordinator for the Race Relations Institute at Fisk University.
Tutu is an ambassador of Join My Village, an innovative, online social change initiative facilitated by the humanitarian organization CARE with financial support from General Mills and Merck that seeks to empower women and girls in the developing world.
