Dr Hawa Abdi


Doctor Hawa Abdi is nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize according to her foundation’s website. According to a commenter below this must be a mistake – but she’s well worth knowing about just the same.

For more than two decades, Mama Hawa has poured her blood, sweat and tears into her humanitarian work, asking for no reward as she sought to provide aid to the most vulnerable victims of the civil war. She has saved tens of thousands of lives in her hospital, while simultaneously providing an education to hundreds of displaced children at the Waqaf-Dhiblawe school.

Mama Hawa’s focus is on creating an independent Somali community, shielded from the conflict that exists outside her camp, and we hope her work will inspire those who fear they can do nothing to improve the circumstances of those around them.

In spite of all the trials that Somalia has been put through over the last twenty years, Mama Hawa has sought to provide a place of refuge for ninety thousand people, ignoring the clan lines that have often served to divide the country. Working under the principle that women are the corner stone of society and that they can be the agents of change in Somalia, Mama Hawa has tried to bring hope to a nation that so many have for too long dismissed as hopeless. Doctor Hawa Abdi can be an inspiration for us, for Somalia, and the entire global community.

Photo Dr Hawa Abdi Foundation

Comments

  1. Albert Bakker says

    Though I wish her the Prize and all the positive that comes with it, personally I think someone like her deserves so much better than this Prize that has been desecrated and befouled by awarding war-criminals and keepers of torture chambers and has lost all meaning long ago.

  2. Gregory in Seattle says

    I do not, in any way, mean to disrespect the amazing work she has accomplished, but… nominated by whom? The site does not mention.

    The process for selecting Peace Prize Laureats is available from the Nobel’s English website. Anyone can submit a nomination letter, but only nominations from a very small number of people are considered: government officials, judges of international jurisdiction, high ranking academics, past laureates, current and past members of the Nobel Committee, and past Peace Prize advisors. These letters must be submitted before February 1, and there are hundreds of them. The Nominating Committee, appointed by the Parliament of Norway, considers these nominations and prepares a short list, which never gets published. The short list is then reviewed by a group of advisors. The winner is announced in October, which is the first actual, official statement of who was considered.

    There is simply no basis in the process for one to claim that she has been nominated for the Peace Prize.

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