Keeping Hope Alive: How One Somali Woman Changed 90,000 Lives

For the last twenty years, Dr Hawa Abdi and her daughters have run a refugee camp on their family farm not far from Mogadishu which has grown to shelter 90,000 displaced Somalis: men, women, and children in urgent need of medical attention.

As Islamist militia groups have been battling for control of the country creating one of the most dire human rights crises in the world, Dr. Abdi’s camp is a beacon of hope for the Somalis, most of whom have no proper access to health care. She was recently held hostage by a militant groups who threatened her life and told her that because she’s a woman she has no right to run the camp. She refused to leave.

This is not just the story of a woman doctor in a war torn Islamic country risking her life daily to minister to thousands of desperate people, it’s also an inspiring story of a divorced woman and her two daughters, bound together on a mission to rehabilitate a country.