Liri Berisha
Quick Facts
Biography
Liri Berisha, née Ramaj, is an Albanian pediatrician and president of the Albanian Children Foundation, and also an UNICEF ambassador.
She is the wife of Sali Berisha, the former President and Prime Minister of Albania, with whom she has two children, daughter Argita, and son Shkëlzen.
Liri Berisha was born Liri Ramaj, the daughter of Rexhep Ramaj Balidemaj, an ethnic Albanian from Martinovići near Plav, at the time part of Yugoslavia (now Montenegro), and Milica Bulatović, a Serbian woman of Montenegrin descent born and raised in Belgrade. After the Yugoslav-Albanian split in 1948, her name was changed by the government to Liri.
In 2008, Berisha founded the Mother Teresa Cultural Foundation. In 2009, the Women's Information Network named Berisha "Woman of the Year".
Berisha joined Autism Speaks in 2011 in celebrating the opening of a new centre for autistic children in Albania, calling the centre a way to improve the lives of children with autism there.