I KNEW THAT AS LONG AS I WAS I COULD MAKE IT

That's not to say she isn't grateful for the opportunities modeling gave her. "It got me where I am today," she says. "I learned a lot. I lost a lot, gained a lot. Then I moved on, I had to change the world." Her last job was another Pirelli calendar, the 1997 edition shot by Richard Avedon,
Since 2002, the nonprofit Waris Dirie Foundation has assisted more than 40,000 people all over the world who have been affected or threatened by FGM. "Once a mother from Sudan came to my office with her two-year-old daughter. They had fled the conflict in Darfur, and now her husband and his parents had decided to have the little girl mutilated," recalls Dirie. "1 immediately informed social services and talked to both the father and his parents about FGM. The girl was saved."
She is quick to point out that FGM is not just a women's issue. "As the mother of two boys, I feel we have to teach men early. Eveiy education begins with Mama, We have to rethink what we teach our sons. That's the most important thing,"
This year, Dirie plans to show Desert Flowerfree of charge iriAfnca and to educate lawyers in Kenya on how to help women affected by FGM, domestic violence, or forced marriage. She is also, along with Salma Flayek, Stella McCartney, Gucci's Frida Giannini, and others, on the board of the PPR Foundation for Women's Dignity and Rights, which campaigns for women's causes worldwide.
Dirie currently splits her time between Gdansk, Poland, and Vienna but says, "Look, I belong nowhere and to no one." Her next move may be to Africa, likely to Tanzania, later this year.
"When I go back to Somalia and talk to women about FGM," Dirie says, "they always ask me, 'You mean you left your camels to go live in white man's world?'
"And I always say, 'Yes, I did that. A camel girl did that. I did it with my wish and my wheel and my way.'"