Sally Armstrong

Sally Armstrong is an Amnesty International award winner, a member of the Order of Canada, journalist, teacher, author and human rights activist. She has recently been appointed to the International Women’s Commission at the UN. Armstrong is a powerful and engaging speaker whose far-ranging career has given her a foundation for her message, which is inspirational for people in every walk of life. 

Armstrong has covered stories in zones of conflict all over the world. From Bosnia and Somalia to Rwanda and Afghanistan, her eyewitness reports have earned her awards, including the Gold Award from the National Magazine Awards foundation and the Author's Award from the Foundation for the Advancement of Canadian Letters. She received the Amnesty International Media Award in 2000 and again in 2002. Armstrong is the recipient of six honorary doctorate degrees. Her documentary works include They Fell From the Sky, and The Daughters of Afghanistan. She is the author of three books - Veiled Threat: The Hidden Power of the Women of Afghanistan, The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor - and the most recent, Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women. 

Armstrong shows organizations how to meet the opportunities and challenges of an era when business and civil society must move in harmony. She helps audiences understand the driving world forces that are shaping this new century and how to meet the needs of the people in their organizations who will make this happen.

• Each presentation is crafted towards the needs of the client. Some examples of past presentation titles include:
  
  ·Human Rights-Human Wrongs ·The Power of One ·Who in the World Cares? ·Women and Children Last
  

• On behalf of the CGFNS International, I wish to thank you for your contribution to the success of the symposium, Building Global Alliances: The Challenges of Migration for Health Professional Women. The articulate and passionate stories of your experiences in Rwanda, Somalia, and Afghanistan and the women with whom you came in contact, were at once disturbing, heart rendering and heart warming. You painted touching and realistic pictures that provoked insight and context for the following day that served as a foundation on which all of the subsequent speakers could build.

  Commission of Graduates of Foreign Nursing Schools

• She was the absolute perfect speaker for our event. She took the time to research and take in the event and artfully wove together our YMCA Peace Medal recipients and their personal stories with her message. It was the perfect message for our event and the people we were honouring and I so appreciated her time and care she took in preparation for the speech to make it so personal to our community.

  YMCA Northumberland

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  November 2008

  Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots: The Uncertain Fate of Afghanistan's Women

  In Bitter Roots, Tender Shoots, journalist Sally Armstrong revisits Afghanistan to compare women's lives pre- and post-Taliban, interviewing Afghan and Western women who are dedicated to improving health, education, culture, religion, and human rights. Armstrong connects these stories with the analysis of experts and considers the grassroots efforts of Canadians and the dedicated tax dollars being spent by the Canadian government.

  
  
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  February 2008

  The Nine Lives of Charlotte Taylor

  Charlotte Taylor lived in the front row of history. In 1775, at the young age of twenty, she fled her English country house and boarded a ship to Jamaica with her lover, the family’s black butler. Soon after reaching shore, Charlotte’s lover died of yellow fever, leaving her alone and pregnant in Jamaica. In the sixty-six years that followed, she would find refuge with the Mi’kmaq of what is present-day New Brunswick, have three husbands, nine more children and a lifelong relationship with an aboriginal man. Using a seamless blend of fact and fiction, Charlotte Taylor's great-great-great-granddaughter, Sally Armstrong, reclaims the life of a dauntless and unusual woman and delivers living history with all the drama and sweep of a novel.

  
  
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  May 2003

  Veiled Threat

  Veiled Threat begins on September 27, 1996, the day the Taliban seized power and put women under house arrest. Armstrong steps back to describe the centuries-old history of misogyny and the way customs such as honour killing found their way to Afghanistan. She also highlights the extraordinary work women around the world were doing to rescue their sisters in Afghanistan while venerable bodies such as the United Nations were virtually silent. Based on first-hand experience that includes Armstrong's own unexpected stay with the Taliban and years of passionate involvement in the struggle for women's rights in Afghanistan, Veiled Threat brings a humane and informed view to the lives of women in this tragic and awesome land.