Aminata Conteh-Biger Power for good

Aminata Conteh-Biger grew up surrounded by the mountains and red dust of Freetown in Sierra Leone. She remembers the smell of the dust after the rain, baking bread in the morning and her father’s favourite leather chair in their family home. It was a comfortable life, one full of love and security.

Conteh-Biger was raised by her father. She describes him as a generous, humble man and one of the biggest influences on her life: “He wanted to treat every single person equally, but he was firm. And he was gentle and vulnerable. All of that in one person; we were very blessed to have that sort of example.”

Her father was foundational in making Conteh-Bger who she is and shaping how she sees the world. “What he really left me, that I’ve always carried, is the value of human beings, not the value of material things,” she says. He taught her integrity and belief in herself, but above all a respect for human life. “He really wanted us to know that at the end of the day, you speak to the beggar in the street in the same tone as you speak to the man in the mansion.