Waris Dirie (born in 1965) is a Somali

Somali people

Somalis are an ethnic group located in the Horn of Africa, also known as the Somali Peninsula. The overwhelming majority of Somalis speak the Somali language, which is part of the Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family...

 model

Model (person)

A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....

, author

Author

An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

, actress and human rights activist.
Waris Dirie was born into a nomad

Nomad

Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...

ic clan in Galkacyo, Somalia

Somalia

Somalia , officially the Somali Republic and formerly known as the Somali Democratic Republic under Socialist rule, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory...

 in 1965. At the age of thirteen, she fled her family in order to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man. She landed in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 where she lived with and worked for wealthy relatives. Waris later worked at a local McDonald's

McDonald's

McDonald's Corporation is the world's largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 64 million customers daily in 119 countries. Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by the eponymous Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948...

, trying to make ends meet after war broke out in her country causing the closure of the Somalian Embassy where she had previously worked.
By chance, Waris was discovered by photographer Terence Donovan

Terence Donovan (photographer)

Terence Daniel Donovan was a British photographer and film director, best remembered for his fashion photography of the 1960s. He oversaw the music video to Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love" and "Simply Irresistible".Donovan was born in Stepney in the East End of London to Lilian Constance V...

, who helped secure for her the cover of the 1987 Pirelli Calendar

Pirelli Calendar

The Pirelli Calendar is a trade calendar published by the Pirelli company's UK subsidiary. It has become an annual publication that dates back to 1964....

.