KIMMIE WEEKS BIOGRAPHY
Dr. Kimmie L. Weeks is a survivor to the Liberia civil war has worked to alleviate poverty and human suffering in Africa and around the world since he was fourteen years old. He was born in Monrovia , Liberia in December 1981 and attended various primary and secondary institutions in Liberia including the Isaac A. Davids School, The college of West Africa (CWA) and the Rock International Christian Academy (RICA).
Early on, Kimmie Weeks developed a passion for advocacy and activism as he begun to fight for the rights of children and young people as was enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). At an early age, became involved in co-founding several local organizations including the Voice of the Future Inc and the Children’s Bureau of Information. These organizations played a key role in furthering and promoting the rights and wellbeing of children across Liberia.
In 1994, Dr. Weeks developed a radio program called the Golden Kids News. Seeing great value in the program, the American based organization called Search for Common Ground International partnered with Kimmie Weeks to produce the program. The radio program was so successful in Liberia, that the organization duplicated it in 36 countries and several languages around the world. Search for Common Ground still lists this program as one of its most successful programs ever created.
In 1998 Kimmie Weeks issued a groundbreaking report in the Liberian government’s involvement in the training of child soldiers. As a result, he was forced to leave Liberia and go into exile in the United States.
While in the United States, Kimmie Weeks founded an international organization called Youth Action International. The mission of the organization is to provide education, health care and economic empowerment for children and young people. Since its establishment, the organization had impacted more then 200,000 people in five countries including Burundi, Ghana, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Uganda.
In recognition of his work and extraordinary contributions to humanity, Kimmie Weeks has received several national and international awards. Noteworthy amongst them are the 2007 Golden Brick Award, the Worlds Children’s Prize from the Queen of Sweden, the Martin Luther King Peace Medallion, The Golden Image Award and and the Nuclear Age Foundation Award for Humanity. In 2007, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf presented Kimmie with Liberia’s highest honor by decorating him Knight Grand Commander in the Humane Order of African Redemption after he served as orator for Liberia’s independence day celebrations.
Additional, Dr. Weeks is featured in the new book Peace in Our Lifetime as an international peacemaker, along with Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 2008, MTV Canada and Discovery Chanel International profiled Kimmie’s work as part of a new reality series called 4REAL. In 2009, CNN International Profiled Kimmie Weeks on the program called African Voices. More than 200 million people in over 250 countries viewed the show.
Dr. Kimmie Weeks received his bachelors from Amherst College and his Masters from the University of Pennsylvania. He also was awarded an honorary Doctorate Degree in May 2011.
He currently serves as Executive Director of Youth Action International, Director of Africa Operations for Intergrum Scientific, and as a member World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council.
