Keeping Hope Alive
One Woman--90,000 Lives Changed
-
- $12.99
-
- $12.99
Publisher Description
The moving memoir of one brave woman who, along with her daughters, has kept 90,000 of her fellow citizens safe, healthy, and educated for over 20 years in Somalia.
Dr. Hawa Abdi, "the Mother Teresa of Somalia" and Nobel Peace Prize nominee, is the founder of a massive camp for internally displaced people located a few miles from war-torn Mogadishu, Somalia. Since 1991, when the Somali government collapsed, famine struck, and aid groups fled, she has dedicated herself to providing help for people whose lives have been shattered by violence and poverty. She turned her 1300 acres of farmland into a camp that has numbered up to 90,000 displaced people, ignoring the clan lines that have often served to divide the country. She inspired her daughters, Deqo and Amina, to become doctors. Together, they have saved tens of thousands of lives in her hospital, while providing an education to hundreds of displaced children.
In 2010, Dr. Abdi was kidnapped by radical insurgents, who also destroyed much of her hospital, simply because she was a woman. She, along with media pressure, convinced the rebels to let her go, and she demanded and received a written apology.
Dr. Abdi's story of incomprehensible bravery and perseverance will inspire readers everywhere.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
When Somali human rights activist Abdi was just a girl, her grandmother told her, "You will be the big trees that everyone comes and relaxes under," foreshadowing Abdi's role as physician and human rights advocate at her clinic and camp in rural Southern Somalia. In the 1960s, Abdi received a scholarship and free medical training in the Soviet Union. With high hopes, she returned to Somalia soon after independence from Great Britain and Italy, but quickly learned that change is not always for the better. A 1969 government overthrow set off decades of virulent clan warfare, looting and destruction, cycles of famine and drought. Despite the many accolades she has won (including a Nobel Peace Prize nomination) and the global media coverage of her successes, Abdi's tale is one of personal conflict, inside both Somalia and herself. Her courage remains steadfast in the face of perpetual turmoil: an arranged marriage at age 12, the loss of her beloved mother and grandmother, betrayal by her sisters, abandonment by her second husband, the mysterious death of her son, her clinic's capture by a group of religious fundamentalists. Her bottom-line message explains a stubbornness that transcends the years of violence and pain: "No matter where you have been, your home is still the best."
