Alek Wek - Supermodel and Campaigner for Refugees The 100 Women Interviews

Welcome and to the 100 Women Interviews -- welcome to. In just

ten years she went from dodging bullets in the south of Sudan to

strutting her stuff on the catwalks of the world. As a teenager, her

parents made a perilous journey to London seeking asylum and before

long she broken into the fashion industry at a time when dark skinned

models were rare. She has inspired women all over the world and now

campaigns for victims of war as one of the UN refugee agency's Goodwill

ambassadors. So how did she do it? You have made a life for yourself

here in New York. It is very different from where you grew up in

the south of Sudan. How was your childhood? Wow. My recollection of

my childhood growing up in South Sudan, I was born and raised in Wau

and it was really wonderful, I thought. Just doing the simple

things such as going to school, not coming straight home, kind of

messing around with my schoolmates and getting into the mango trees,

eating four even though my mother said no eating mangoes before you

come home and eat dinner! Running up the hill, spotting planes because it

was just a very simple, small little town. You grew up in a large family

with eight brothers and sisters. My older siblings, I am the seventh of

nine, although one passed away, bless his soul, but my relationship

with my parents... There was a lot of struggle, of course. Especially

when the Civil War broke out and it became a lot worse in Wau. And your

life just changed? It changed like overnight. Because literally...

There was an instant word you were barricaded for three days, shooting

and bombing and militias, and there were a lot of break-ins in the

middle of the night with neighbours disappearing. It was just really...

I saw my parents frightened and that is something, as a child, when you

see your parents are scared, you know there is something that is

beyond the control of everybody. Did you understand what was going on

around you? Did you know what war was and why people were frightened?

I mean... I knew there was a conflict. But I was very saddened

that we had to leave. It was like somebody chucked you out of your own

home, which is exactly what happened. But not just that, you are

vulnerable. And there is nobody that will take responsibility if you

disappear or if anything happens. So every time you hear somebody

disappeared or there was a conflict that took many lives, you are

afraid... Which, it happened to many families, that it is going to take

your Mama or your sister or your brother. It is really sad, because

if you don't have your home now, what are you going to have? Being in

the village, we were not equipped to live there. We're talking about

taking the grain, pounding it into making flower, just everything,

basic things, trying to handle the capital, that was something that was

so new for me. Sleeping and waking up with a bug in your ear that you

can't get out. We were just out there in nature. It was really

surreal, but I would say, just overnight, going off and not being

able to have your home, not being able to see your neighbours or your

friends... And that was not like you come back after six months and

everything was OK. We ended up looking for two and half weeks with

thousands of others, the whole village of Wau, we were refugees

trying to cross the village to find refuge in the Bush. We all had to go

through this river and it was during the rainy season so the water was

very high. It was very, very nerve-racking. And not knowing

anything, then you start to think, even though you are nine years old,

you still know if your parents are telling you the truth or semi

truths, so I could see in their eyes, they were quite frightened.

Finally your father made it to the capital of Sudan, Khartoum. We

didn't go over all at once. It was extremely difficult because

obviously there were no commercial flights. It was just the Boeing

Hercules. Everyone tries to get in it and go to the city. And not

everyone was able to. And you also have to sometimes bribe or pay, but

we didn't have much money. How did you make it to Khartoum yourself? I

ended up going with my Neighbour and pretending I was his child. And it

was quite scary. Once I made it to London where I finally went to seek

refuge and my older sister was there with her husband, and we were going

to go back, once arriving in London, I was very shocked at first. How

cold it was. I had my little South Sudan skirt on in my little talk and

it was cold. Even though it was the beginning of the summer. But

everything was so different. And then I didn't see my mother for two

years. That was quite difficult. And then I had to go into school, and

learn English, how to write. How was it settling into a different

culture, learning a new language and a way of life? How did people

receive you? Very, very challenging. Children at school are not very

pleasant. They can be bullies. Midnight black and long skinny,

lanky. I got called everything. Chicken legs. But at the same time,

Oh my God!, I don't have to worry about, if it gets dark, having to

run back in. I was nervous for quite some time because I was so used to

being nervous and scared that somebody may break in or somebody

may do something bad. So it was very, very challenging but I just

threw myself into school. But I would say, I never forgot that smile

from my dad and those words from my dad of not just be yourself, but get

that education. Your father did not make it out of Khartoum. What do you

think you would think about you today? It is very hard. What would

he say about your success? Is his emotional -- it is emotional. I

think he would be very happy. Just to see that... Oh my God! I don't

know. My dad does this. I think he would be very proud. He would give

me that same smile. And that is the reassurance that, you are

beautiful, just as you are. And you are not going to let anybody degrade

you. You are not going to let anybody bring you down is OK to be

vulnerable -- and it is. But not naive because I am not naive. I know

what I am doing and I am very proud. I am crying these tears of joy, but

my dad would be very, very proud and say, I am so glad you are still

yourself. It is like the most amazing thing, to have somebody that

watches over you, you know? Is he the reason he kept going, you kept

pushing when there were some the critics around you? Yeah. He is the

guy that... I always say they don't make men like that anymore. All the

way from South Sudan, here we are in New York, your new home. How did you

make that journey? I was going back and forwards in London, obviously,

after leaving South Sudan. To Khartoum. But it ended up working

out for work because I was travelling tremendously, every week

or two. And it is 6- seven -8 hours on a flight. That was really

exhausting. So, for me it was very important to just base myself here

and it gives me a chance to also be able to work. And it was very

crucial in the beginning to make sure that I was consistent, because

sometimes if you work and then you do very well and you leave, you come

back and it may not be the same. Then you could just be a 1-hit

wonder. I knew and I felt that whenever I was going to choose to do

something and have a profession in it, I better take it seriously. I

better work hard at it. So when I went to a park, a friend of mine

from college said, come to this park and that is where the scout from

models one, which was one of the most reputable modelling agencies in

London at the time, was. And they were an amazing sort of family, type

of people. They really nurtured the younger models and I almost quit

because I didn't want to leave my schooling. I came to London and all

the challenges we had... I didn't want to feel like I was just letting

go of all the hard work at the time. This is my first time doing a

Highline. And the other thing you have talked a lot about is being

asked to fit into roles that have been designed for African girls and

you do not want to be put in a box. You want to be seen as a model, like

any other. And yet, it is the reason you were discovered in the park in

the first place. It is your uniqueness, which you should be

celebrating, not running away from. It should be celebrated but not...

Not dissected, not pigeonholed, not make fun of, do you know what I

mean? You wrote in your biography about being asked to pose on animal

skins with a spear. What did that make you feel? For me, it was

extremely important to not buy into the negativity. I was born in town

and I don't carry spears around so why would I be taking pictures with

Spears? You look raising now. I not going to look crazy. So you have to

take that I get to somebody else. You need to have the management that

can be able to have not just... See the highest integrity for you but

they have integrity enough not to come to you with that nonsense,

because I wasn't going to try to throw myself into somewhere where I

was going to be exploited or something was going to happen to me.

I don't want to be defined all over again and be taken away, like who I

am. Like, no way. Either you take all of this or nothing. Do you see

yourself as playing an important role in defining beauty? I think

each woman as an individual has such an amazing opportunity to just be

your self and celebrate all there is about yourself, which is including

your roots, including everything about yourself, because that is what

makes each person an individual. I had that in that it in me and I had

so much joy that I thought it would be stupid to just quit and not just

do this comment not be in this business, where, really, it

celebrates women. You are constantly under pressure to be size zero, but

you travel around the world where all sizes of women are all different

heights. What do you make of all this change was Mac is this a new

frontier? It is wonderful that we can say it

is beautiful to celebrate if you are curvy. You go to your doctors, you

do your checkup and you are healthy, therefore you are absolutely

beautiful. But if you are big and you are unhealthy, that is not good.

If you are thin and you are just depriving yourself of nutrition, I

mean, you have to eat to nourish your body, you know? You don't have

to live to eat, you have to eat so that you can live. So, that for me

was very inconceivable. There are many women who look like you and

me, but there are those who have bleached their skin. And so the

concept of beauty is lighter skin, straight hair, which is not the

natural African hair. I think that when something has been embedded for

so long. Like, in my household, it is not even in our mental, we just

actually cannot believe people put toxic things on their skin when

there is like such a profound reason God made our tone and pigment, you

know, because of where we come from and that is who we are, and it is

beautiful. I think it is more the mind. You know, I always say, you

are not bleaching your skin, you are bleaching your psychology. There is

this time you are wearing a blonde wig with a fringe and on the catwalk

you removed it and threw it to the crowd. What made you do it? That wig

was not just me taking it off to make a scene, it was a time I was

starting in fashion to work, and the one thing I told my agent was, if

you are going to represent me, I am not going to be a gimmick and be in

for a couple of seasons. You are going to take it all or leave it. In

2011, South Sudan, your country, got independence, and there was so much

celebration in the country and beyond. I remember you also said

that, you know, there was relief that there was finally stability in

South Sudan. Two years down the line, it descended again into war.

What did it make you feel? When you look at the situation, how do you

feel? I am very heartbroken. Very heartbreaking because every family,

I mean, the war was such a bloodshed, and not just a bloodshed,

it dispersed so many families. You know? And that is something that is

not easy to take in when you know that, like, you just grew up

together and you were to gather, but to destroy a family at a community

is very hard to put back together -- together. But it can be put back

together. So, after the referendum, I mean, it was just, there is no

words to express when I heard the news and my family... Just everyone

in South Sudan. It was so unreal. I didn't think that they would come

while I am still alive. And before that day came you were caught in

saying that the world had responded with rhetoric and not much else. And

right now, South Sudan has gone back to fighting. Very sad. Do you feel

the world is doing enough to support the country? At him or can be done.

More can be done. Just the fact that the country itself is so rich in so

many ways, the culture, the history, the land itself, the

agriculture, we can eat off the land -- I think that. We have the natural

resources. The people deserve it. It is enough for the people. So, why

are we doing this? Why are we depriving the next generation lot of

our young men, even though the women also fought the war, and I believe

the women that took care of the children for the war too, because

they are constantly picking up and running with children, not knowing

what is the next term, and turbulence. Heartbreaking. Very,

very heartbreaking. And I feel that the international community can do

more. And not just in a ceasefire, but really, they have to be very --

their have to be strict rules that have to be applied. You became the

UN Refugee Agency's Goodwill Ambassador -- there. Why did you

want to get involved, what motivated you to work with them? I got

involved with UNHCR I would say just witnessing it first-hand. When the

civil war broke out, they were the ones who were there and helping save

lives, giving out the basic necessities. Those that a human

being needs - shelter, food, safety, you know? UNHCR are the biggest

Refugee Agency in the world and they are in places no one wants to go

into. And I'm talking about a team that have their own family,

children, mothers, fathers. So, it is just very humbling when you see

such an organisation that are doing such work to try to help save lives.

And they do. You have visited the people who have been displaced in

South Sudan. Does it bother you that this is still happening after a time

when they celebrated Independence? It was really quite something. I

couldn't believe that the refugees, and especially the magnitude, before

we landed down, to just see miles and miles and miles of refugee

camps, that people that were coming from regions that the rain had just

, up to a level where they could live there any more, and it was, you

know, the reigning season with the malaria and floods, with the

diarrhoea, so it was challenges after challenges -- raining season.

And when you look around the world there is a huge refugee crisis. You

once said that refugees are people who have dignity. But what we are

seeing isn't really that. Do they still have dignity, people dying in

the seas as they try to escape hardship and war? That really was

very painful. It was very painful to see, because we shouldn't be seeing

children washed up, you know? Because their parents, their family,

had absolutely nothing. So, it was desperation to try and get somewhere

safe so that their little ones can be the next generation. And to know

that another human being did that, made that situation, for the

innocent children to be washed up, that for me, I couldn't believe it.

This is the time to say enough. There are people who can look out

for other human beings, other people who can speak up when something it

is not right and say that this is wrong and something should be done.

And I feel in 2015 we will see human beings, especially children,

innocent children, tidying, you know, trying to cross the ocean,

just trying to find safety - so much more has to be done to help them --

dying. Because refugees are like me and you. As part of the BBC's 100

Women season, we have asked you to nominate someone who inspires you.

Who inspires you, Alek? Who inspires me? I would say there are so many

women that inspire me, but one in particular. I like to really embrace

of the young ones, because I was not too long ago a teenager. My niece,

she is amazing, she just graduated from Cambridge, majoring in

architecture. She put herself through school. And the energy she

has, not just for South Sudan, but for the whole continent as Africa.

Alek Wek, thank you for being one of our 100 Women. Thank you, it is very

humbling. This brief spell

of wintry weather has brought us