Another winner, Kakenya Ntaiya of Kenya, travels widely as the first youth adviser to the United Nations Population Fund. She speaks about girls' education as a way to end child marriage and the painful custom in some cultures of cutting the sex organs of girls.
She agreed to follow this tradition if her father would let her finish high school instead of getting married. Then she persuaded leaders in her rural village to help send her to college in the United States. Kakenya Ntaiya expects to receive a doctorate in education next year. She plans to return to Kenya to establish a school for girls.
The final winner was Sheikha Lubna al-Qasimi in the United Arab Emirates. In two thousand four she became the first woman appointed as a finance minister in the Middle East. Now she heads a newly formed ministry of foreign trade. She is also a businesswoman and works with information technology.
