In her final speech to New Zealand's Parliament on Wednesday, Jacinda Ardern described in emotional terms how she'd navigated a pandemic and a mass-shooting during her tumultuous five-year tenure as prime minister.
She also told humorous anecdotes like how a European leader so admired the striking hair of Ardern's chief-of-staff that he fluffed it like a hairdresser -- which she joked had helped secure a free-trade deal -- and how her mother once sent her a uplifting, if somewhat grandiose, message: "Remember, even Jesus had people who didn't like him.
Later this month, Ardern will begin a new, unpaid role combating online extremism as Special Envoy for the Christchurch Call. It's an initiative she started with French President Emmanuel Macron in May 2019, two months after a white supremacist gunman killed 51 people at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch.
"A domestic terror attack. A volcanic eruption. A pandemic. A series of events where I found myself in people's lives during their most grief-stricken or traumatic moments," she said. "Their stories and faces remain etched in my mind, and likely will forever." Ardern became just the second elected world leader to give birth while holding office after she and Gayford had daughter Neve in 2018.
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