29 Facts About Amanda Lindhout

Amanda Lindhout was born on June 12,1981 and is a Canadian humanitarian, public speaker and journalist.

Amanda Lindhout was released 15 months later on November 25,2009, and has since embarked on a philanthropic career.

Amanda Lindhout was born in 1981 in Red Deer, Alberta, Canada.

Amanda Lindhout's father had chronic health problems, and depended on disability payments.

Amanda Lindhout had early aspirations to become a model and did some brief modelling work.

At the age of 24, Amanda Lindhout quit her job as a cocktail waitress to become a journalist.

Amanda Lindhout used her salary from the bar where she worked to finance reporting trips to various conflict zones around the world.

Amanda Lindhout began her new journalism career in Afghanistan, arriving in the capital Kabul in May 2007.

Amanda Lindhout later moved on to an assignment in Baghdad, Iraq in January 2008, where she worked on a freelance basis for Iran's state television Press TV.

Amanda Lindhout was said to have been released several hours later, after paying a ransom to her abductors.

Amanda Lindhout wrote that she was instead taken to the Sadr Party Headquarters and questioned about her political affiliations, and that she was able to call an Iraqi friend who ensured they were released within the hour.

Several media reports suggested that Amanda Lindhout was in Somalia on assignment for France 24.

However, Nathalie Lenfant, a spokesman for the organization, indicated that Amanda Lindhout had sent only a few reports to the news agency from Iraq.

Lenfant stated that France 24 had declined two proposals by Amanda Lindhout to serve as a correspondent for the organization in Iraq and Somalia, respectively.

Amanda Lindhout was hospitalized in Nairobi for two weeks and treated for acute malnourishment.

In 2013, Amanda Lindhout released a memoir, co-written with journalist Sara Corbett, titled A House in the Sky recounting her experience as a hostage.

Amanda Lindhout indicated in the book that her motive for travelling to Somalia in the midst of an insurgency was the dearth of competition from other journalists covering the region, as well as the possibility of documenting unique human interest stories.

Amanda Lindhout asserted that she and Brennan had converted to Islam to both appease their abductors and make life easier for themselves.

Some of Amanda Lindhout's retelling of events contradict those found in the earlier published memoir of her co-captive, Nigel Brennan.

In 2010 Amanda Lindhout addressed the United Nations Association in Ottawa about women's rights.

Amanda Lindhout moderated a panel which included a former Somali militant with Al-Shabaab, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

Amanda Lindhout asked Mohamed how he justified the injuries and deaths to civilians while a member of the insurgent group, but he instead addressed the political motives that drove him to join the outfit.

At the 2013 One Billion Rising event in Calgary, Amanda Lindhout spoke for the first time in frank terms about her victimization in Somalia at the hands of her teenage captors.

Amanda Lindhout spoke at the We-day event in Winnipeg later that year.

In 2010, Amanda Lindhout founded the Global Enrichment Foundation to create more opportunities in Somalia by offering university scholarships to women.

Amanda Lindhout currently serves as the organization's Executive Director, with Ahmed Hussen, the president of the Canadian Somali Congress, acting as the Fund's co-director.

Amanda Lindhout's foundation aims to annually send 100 women in the country to university for the next four years, and is sponsoring tertiary education for 36 women, who are expected to go on to become teachers, doctors, environmentalists and engineers, among other professions.

Amanda Lindhout attempted to reconcile her fear of abduction with her deep commitment to helping the asylum seekers.

Amanda Lindhout was awarded a Doctor of Laws, honouris causa, from the University of Lethbridge on May 30,2014.