War and Trees, with Zainab Salbi

Humanitarian, activist, writer and TV host Zainab Salbi has become a leading voice for women’s rights. A survivor of struggles both geopolitical and personal, Zainab has taken her hard-won insights about conflict and healing, and used that empathy to organize and inspire. Along the way, she’s developed a deep connection to the natural world, where she finds rich metaphors that inform her work.  

Zainab grew up in Iraq, in the shadow of Saddam Hussein’s regime, before fleeing to the United States at the age of 19. In 1993, she founded Women for Women, a global humanitarian effort that has helped half a million women affected by conflict.

Her awards and accolades include inclusion in Foreign Policy Magazine's “100 Leading Global Thinkers” and People Magazine's “25 Women Changing The World.” She is the author of several books, including her most recent, Freedom Is An Inside Job: Owning Our Darkness and Our Light to Heal Ourselves and the World. 

We met Zainab for a crisp, socially-distanced, leaf-crunching walk at a nature preserve in Pawling, New York, 75 miles north of New York City. It was November, 2020, just days after the Presidential election, and though the votes were still being counted, it was already clear that America remained divided.

Impressed by her experience working with survivors of global conflicts, we wanted to ask Zainab about what comes next. In the wake of #metoo and #blacklivesmatter, and as we confront the growing threat of violent extremism in the US… Now what?  How can societies and souls overcome our greatest failings?