Hawa Abdi
On a sprawling, 1,300-acre tract of inherited land in Somalia, just outside the capital Mogadishu, Dr. Hawa Abdi and her two daughters, Amina and Deqo Mohamed — all trained in obstetrics and gynecology — care for 90,000 displaced persons, mostly women and children, who fled the violence or were abandoned by male family members who joined the fighting nearly two decades ago.
In war-ravaged Somalia, a place crippled with no functioning government, a terrorist insurgency and a regional famine that threatens millions with malnutrition, starvation and death, Dr. Abdi is a symbol of hope for a country in crisis.
Dr. Abdi started a one-room clinic in 1983 to help rural women safely deliver babies. It has grown to encompass a hospital with three operating theaters, six doctors, 43 nurses, 400 beds and an 850-student school and adult education center. Today, literacy and health education classes are offered, including curricula on risks of female genital mutilation; the practice is still routine among 98 percent of the female population in Somalia, but forbidden inside the camp.
Outside the guarded walls a protracted civil war simmers, and camp refugees often hear gunfire in the distance. Inside the walls, small miracles occur every day. Price of admittance to the camp is a simple promise — leave clan divisions at the door, and do not beat your wife. Children go to school. Food and clean drinking water are available. Medical care is free.
Inexorably, a new generation of Somalis is emerging from desperation in this nearly-utopian community where girls, thanks to Dr. Abdi’s example, are seen as equal to boys.
In May of 2010, militant Islamist warlords threatened to destroy their life’s work. They demanded to take over the camp, citing religious decrees that women stay home, out of the public eye. Dr. Abdi refused to back down. When a negotiated takeover failed, the militants later returned with a vengeance, killing two camp refugees who tried to intervene, destroying the hospital, spraying her residence with bullets, and detaining Dr. Abdi herself. A well-timed phone call to the BBC drew world attention to the siege, and it wasn’t long before the militants retreated and Dr. Abdi and her daughters set to work on recovery and rebuilding.
Word of Dr. Abdi’s courageous defense of her camp quickly spread through the international community, catching the attention of Glamour magazine. Through its Women of the Year Fund initiative, in partnership with Vital Voices, critical contributions have poured in to provide supplies and operational support, including emergency feeding stations.
“We are not only doctors to treat the people. We are even healers of society, to educate the people, to feed them, to care about all of them,” said Dr. Abdi during a recent trip to Washington, D.C. “We need a lot of help.”
Her daughter, Dr. Mohamed, elaborated, “My mother is being very humble and trying not to say, but I think 
that her vision takes us to peace in Somalia. We need peace, and Somali women have to stand up. We need to say ‘Enough is enough. No more war, no more dying.’”
Vital Voices stands with Drs. Abdi and Mohamed in their vision for a peaceful and stable Somalia, where women can reclaim their freedoms and opportunities lost to war, famine and extremism. Today, drought and famine find millions of men, women and children fighting for their lives throughout the Horn of Africa. The international community is responding, but aid delivery cannot keep pace with the need. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, founder of Vital Voices Global Partnership, spelled out the severity of the crisis in a speech to the International Food Policy Research Institute in August 2011, pledging $17 million in food aid. Somalia is the “epicenter of the emergency,” she noted, and $12 million will go to humanitarian operations in that country.
How to help:
Support Dr. Abdi’s camp and contribute to relief efforts by donating to a fund administered by Vital Voices (100% of donations support the camp and relief efforts). Or, donate directly to the Doctor Hawa Abdi Foundation through its website.
