Sr. Lea Ackermann

Founder of SOLWODI

Lea Ackermann was born in Völklingen and grew up in Klarenthal. After an apprenticeship as a bank clerk in Saarbrücken, she joined the Order of the Missionary Sisters of Our Lady of Africa ("White Sisters") in 1960. She studied languages, theology, pedagogy and psychology and received her doctorate in pedagogy from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich in 1977 with a thesis on education in Rwanda. She lives in Hirzenach.

As a teacher in Rwanda and Kenya, she has experienced how women in particular - driven to impoverishment by the destruction of cultural and economic resources - have become victims of sex trade, sexual exploitation and human trafficking. Ackermann developed her understanding of mission from her experiences with women affected by sex tourism and forced prostitution. In 1985 she founded the women's project SOLWODI (Solidarity with women in distress) in Mombasa, Kenya. With counseling and educational offers, it helps the damaged women to (re)get back on their own feet. Later, Ackermann and Agnes Mailu founded SOLGIDI (Solidarity with girls in distress).

In the meantime, several SOLWODI contact points in Germany also take care of foreign women who came to Germany with the promise of work or marriage and became victims of forced prostitution and human trafficking.

On February 29, 2012, Lea Ackermann was awarded the Grand Cross of Merit for her work as a women's rights activist. On December 12, 2019, Federal Minister Gerd Müller awarded Sr. Lea Ackermann the "One World Medal in Gold" for her life's work.