Monika Kørra

You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Norwegian. (February 2017) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the Norwegian article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing Norwegian Wikipedia article at [[:no:Monika Kørra]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|no|Monika Kørra}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation.

Monika Kørra
Born	(1989-09-05) September 5, 1989 (age 35)
Education	Southern Methodist University
Occupation	Author
Works	Kill the Silence

Monika Kørra (born September 5, 1989) is a Norwegian author and former track and field athlete from Løten.

In 2008, she won the bronze medal in the 3000 metre steeplechase at the Norwegian championships representing the Norwegian club Friidrettsklubben Ren-Eng. She also competed in the 3000 metre steeplechase at the 2008 World Junior Championships in Athletics, finishing twelfth in her heat and failing to reach the final.^[1][2]

Kørra won a sports scholarship at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. On December 5, 2009, she was kidnapped, assaulted and raped by three men living illegally in the United States.^[3][4] Arturo Arevalo and Alfonso Zuniga received life sentences while the third, Luis Zuniga, received 25 years.^[5] Instead of staying silent about her ordeal, she chose to come forward with her story and in 2015, she completed a book in English entitled Kill the Silence stating that, "It's not what happens to you, but how you respond to it that matters." In her book, she details how she forgave her perpetrators, telling them: "I don't hate them; I hate what they did to me. Two of them even cried...That really meant a lot to me because then I saw that it is something good in everyone."^[6] She went on to graduate from Southern Methodist University.^[7]

In 2012, she founded the Monika Kørra Foundation dedicated to creating awareness of the prevalence and effects of sexual assault and to provide a place of healing for victims.^[8] She has appeared in the media in both the United States and Norway including as a guest on the TV talk show Skavlan on October 9, 2015.^[9] In 2009, Kørra was awarded the SMU Athletics' Perseverance Award for her courage. In 2012, she received the Wilma Rudolph Student Athlete Achievement Award.

• Official website
• Official website, Monika Kørra Foundation
• Book Release Celebration "Kill the Silence"
• Monika Korra at Geiranger, Norway - Wilma Rudolph Achievement Award