Coming out this week is the inspirational film 'Desert Flower,' starring Ethiopian model Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Craig Parkinson, Meera Syal, Anthony Mackie, Juliet Stevenson and Timothy Spall.

Directed by Sherry Horman and based on the international best-selling novel of the same name by Waris Dirie, 'Desert Flower' tells Dirie's amazing, heartbreaking and inspirational story from a nomadic goat-herding family to one of the world's most sought-after supermodels and then to a United Nations spokeswoman.

Born into poverty in Somalia, Dirie, at age 13, fled her impending forced marriage by walking days across the Northeast African desert to Somalia's capital, where her relatives aided her escape by putting her on a plane to London. There, arose her fear of returning home -- this time to a war-torn Somalia -- when the embassy she worked as a maid was shut down. So Dirie, homeless and illiterate, took a job at a fast-food restaurant, where she is discovered one day by star modeling photographer Terry Donaldson.

After her rise to fame, and ever burdened by a violent, childhood secret, she gave an interview in which she spoke of her female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of 5. Her openness unleashed a wave of sympathy and controversy in which she decided to dedicate her life fighting against and educating about this horrifying practice. Now a United Nations spokeswoman against FGM, Waris Dirie travels the world to speak out against this brutal and often life-threatening practice, ensuring autonomy for young women and girls all over the world. Her books 'Desert Flower,' 'Desert Dawn,' 'Desert Children' and 'Letter to My Mother' became international best-sellers.

At a recent screening at New York City's Barnard College, actress and model Liya Kebede spoke about her passion for this film and her work as ambassador for the World Health Organization. Here are excerpts from the interview she had with the moderator.

How did your role in 'Desert Flower' come about? This is your first lead role, and it's huge.

Liya Kebede: Well, actually, it's an interesting story because the woman who cast me for 'The Good Shepherd' (with Matt Damon) told me that she had heard through the grapevine about this incredible story about this woman (Waris Dirie). She said to me, "I really think you should look out for it because I think this could be kind of interesting for you. Actually, at first, when she told me it's a story about a model, I thought I don't want to do a story about a model. And she said, "You should really look at it. It's really interesting," and I said "Okay, fine." When I looked for it we found out they were actually casting in New York so I went in and I got the book and read her book for the first time. And I really didn't know a lot about Waris when this project was happening. I had met ,interestingly, seven years ago at an event that Iman had. She did this party, and we happened to be there and I saw her. She was all by herself, and I was with my husband, and she sort of gravitated to me and came. And we chatted and I was like, wow, who is this woman. I was really blown away by her. And then we talked and then she left, and I thought wow. And someone said, "Well, that's Waris Dirie," and I said, "I don't know who Waris Dirie is." So that was that and then fast forward to now, right before this film, I found out there was a book on her life, there was an autobiography of her, and I read it and I was blown away by her story. It was the most incredible story I read. I learned so much. I was shocked, I was touched, I was inspired, I was awed by this young girl who, to me, is someone that we can all look up to because given the circumstances that she was given, she sort of refused to be a victim of her circumstances and sort of decided she was going to lead the life she wanted and she was going to do what she thought was right and not what circumstances she had. I thought it was incredible, so then I went in for the audition.

The resemblance between Waris and you is uncanny. You look different now but really you seem like almost identical beauties. Somalia and Ethiopia share a border, and the practice of female genital mutilation takes place in Ethiopia as well. Waris was a child of a nomad relationship with her father, and you grew up in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. How much class and education and how much difference does it make for a girl to grow up in that way, and can she avoid this practice?

LK: Yes, actually, I think the solution to this problem is education, in many ways. Yes, like you said, I grew up in Addis, which is totally different than growing up in the desert as a nomad. When we started shooting this film, we first went to shoot all the African scenes, and we were in the desert and we were with nomads. It was incredible, in the sense that, I think, we, not just for us the actors but also the whole crew and everybody, that feeling of who really Waris was and where she's coming from and what it means to be from there. The air, the colors and all of it, we just sort of took that all in. And, for me, it was really important to be there because it was a different environment, and to see where she came from was really important. I was even more impressed, I think, with her when I saw where she came from and when I was there than just even seeing it from outside and really seeing what she had to deal with day to day. And for her to avoid the trap that the other girls sort of have to fall into because they don't really have other choices, it was really incredible for her to have the strength, almost this blind strength that she had to push her forward in her life. Unfortunately, the issue happens not just in Somalia, it happens also in Ethiopia and all different places, and it's a cultural thing. I think when I was there, what was really amazing was that we were shooting among people who most of the women who were with us were circumcised. A lot of the actresses were circumcised, and we would sit and chat with them and everything. And what was interesting was they knew we were making this film, they knew we were sort of trying to change the way they saw the idea of what circumcision was, and they were really helpful, and they were wonderful. I think they sort of see it as a different thing. They're living in their world and we're living in another world, and until we're there living their lives we can't really understand what it means. For me I really understood then that they just need a choice. The girls just need another choice in life than the only choice that they have at this moment, which is marriage. And because that's the only choice they have, they fall into customs, if you will, as opposed to if they had a choice. If they were educated and if they were independent somewhat, earned their own money, these kinds of things would just go away.

When did you establish the foundation?

LK: First I became UN Goodwill Ambassador for WHO, and that was in 2005. And then about a year or so later I decided to start my foundation. I guess what I'm trying to do is try to raise awareness of the fact that a lot of women in third world countries don't have access to clinics and doctors and hospitals and things like that, so one of the number-one killers of women in most of Africa is childbirth.

How did you get your modeling career started?

LK: I actually started modeling in Ethiopia, because that's where I grew up, and I started out by just doing little fashion shows for school, and I liked it so much that I started pursuing it.

Can you speak about your foundation and what it does, its goals and where you work?

LK: We basically work on raising awareness of the fact that childbirth and pregnancy kill a lot of women in third world countries. We work mostly in Africa, because that's where the worst situations are. Dying in childbirth is something that's not new; it's been going on for ages, and so it's not something that people focus on, it's not something that gets funded a lot, and it's exactly for that reason that we are losing mothers all the, and we have kids with no mothers. We're letting our mothers die, if you will, and what we try to do is try to raise awareness so that international donor communities can start focusing more on funding specifically maternal health, and local governments will also do the same thing. Because it's a big problem that needs a bit solution it really has to do with increasing infrastructures and really building hospitals and training doctors and training skilled attendants and all of that, which really in the end will help everybody else. Obviously, if there are hospitals everybody will get help from it, but it's just a bigger commitment, so it's a harder one for a lot of people to get into. So that's what we do.