Dr. Hawa Abdi

KEEPING HOPE ALIVEhttps://www.wbur.org“Women can build stability. We can make peace.” Hawa Abdi, a Somalian feminist warrior, a doctor who has the reputation of ‘equal parts Mother Teresa and Rambo,' is the first woman doctor in her country, where women practically have no rights. She built a 400-bed hospital 35 years ago, and then she built the hope village that is home to 90,000 people. What made her have such determination to decide to help so many people all these years?THE FIRST FEMALE GYNECOLOGIST IN SOMALIAhttps://www.flickr.com

She showed her perseverance and bravery at a very young age. Hawa was born into a poor family, so she deeply understood the pain when she had no money to go to a doctor while she was sick. She also witnessed lots of people suffering from diseases, for example, malaria, AIDs, and so on. She decided to do her best to help those in need, so she worked pretty hard on her studies. With the help of a Soviet scholarship, Hawa studied medicine in Kiev and became Somalia’s first female gynecologist. The following year, she began law studies at Mogadishu's Somali National University to fight for women's rights in the future. She finally overcame all of the difficulties, including poverty and discrimination of women, and became an outstanding doctor and then turned back to Somalia to serve her people. What’s more, there were only a few female doctors in her country, that’s why she wanted to prove that women can also do significant work like saving lives. During the civil war in Somalia, Hawa saw a need for a rural health clinic for women. She opened one on her family's ancestral lands in the outskirts of Mogadishu.

Dr. Hawa gradually transformed the small clinic into a 400-bed hospital. Then she wanted to elaborate the idea of rescuing people, so she started to build a community called “the Hope Village,” which is a camp for the displaced Somalis, containing a primary school, high school, community agricultural project, and women’s education center. Soon, 90,000 people, about one percent of Somalia's overall population, mostly women, children and elders, came to the hope village looking for shelter. They all received very good care and settled down in there.

A lot of women have suffered from discrimination, but only a few of them have such determination like Hawa to change their fate. Because of feminists like Dr. Hawa, whose heart is pure as an angel, we have the world that is much friendlier to women than before.