Somali peace activist Ilwad Elman tipped for 2019 Nobel Peace Prize

[AussieHustler]

Ilwad Elman, who moved from Canada to Somalia in 2010 to step into the shoes of her late father and champion of peace in Somalia to fight for former child soldiers and female victims of sexual abuse could be this year’s winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, a Norwegian research organisation know for its predictions has said.

The Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) which announces its shortlist of possible winners of the coveted prize mentioned Elman as a possible winner of the prize under the Youth Peace Activism category.

PRIO director Henrik Urdal who sits in the Nobel Committee but waives his right to nominate has singled out Elman for the prize alongside Libyan activist Hajer Sharief and Hong Kong’s youngest legislator Nathan Law Kwun-chung.

According to PRIO, its directors, based on their professional assessments, ‘have made it a tradition to offer their personal shortlists for the Peace Prize’.

Reacting to the news, Elman told HOL from Canada the nomination alone meant a lot for Elman Peace, the organisation she runs in Mogadishu. “I am excited the world is recognizing the many years of hard work at Elman Peace. We work under difficult conditions but I am glad we have not only changed lives but the world is also paying attention.”

Urdal’s prediction last year came true when Congolese doctor Dr Denis Mukwege and Yazidi activist Nadia Murad were awarded the Peace Prize for ‘their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict.” The two had earlier appeared in Urdal’s nomination list.

PEACE CHAMPION

Elman moved to Somalia from Canada in 2010 to join her mother in continuing the legacy of her father in champion for peace in Somalia through support of vulnerable groups affected by the over two decades period of civil war in Somalia.

Ilwad Elman and her mother, Fartuun Adan, accept an Oxfam Right the Wrong award. “We believe everyone’s life is important,” says Adan. Photo Credit: Keith Lane/ Oxfam America.

Her father, Elman Ali Ahmed, christened the Father of Peace, was killed in 1996 in Mogadishu and her mother Fartuun Adan continued the peace mission before she was joined by Ilwad in 2010. Their rallying call, Drop the Gun, Pick the Pen saw many children return to school after many years of conflict. The organisation has now expanded to incorporate other project areas such as helping women who are victim of sexual abuse, skills and capacity development among others.

Elman Peace has been able to support young men and women through vocational skills training, integration and support of defectors from extremist groups and helping victims of sexual abuse and rape in Somalia.

Elman has previously served in various international organisation such as the Kofi Anan Foundation, One Young World Ambassador among others. She was also instrumental in co-authoring the Youth Action Agenda on Countering Violent Extremism which was cited in the historic UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on youth, peace and security.

She was named among the 100 most influential persons in Africa for 2019.

According to the Nobel Committee confidentiality rules, neither the names of nominators nor of nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize may be divulged until the start of the year marking the 50th anniversary of the awarding of a particular prize

There are 301 candidates for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2019 out of which 223 are individuals and 78 are organization.

The winners will be unveiled next month.

https://www.hiiraan.com/news4/2019/..._ilwad_elman_tipped_for_2019_nobel_prize.aspx

 

[The_Kong Dong]

Finally a positive story about Somalia
keep these coming

The national pride is strong with this one

 

[Bernie Madoff]

Reer Henny we taking this W


Congrats to her

 

[AussieHustler]

Reer Henny we taking this W


Congrats to her

@Gucci mane

For hordes of fake Somali patriots here, she’s from the wrong qabiil and doesn’t deserve this award therefore, they will never give credit to a Somali winning this massive prize if they don’t hail from their clan. Actually, they would prefer another person winning it even Netanyahu. They qashiin my posts to this reality for exposing their addiction to tribal bigotry.

 

[VantaBlack]

Her father was a legend and a true kind soul.

 

[land owner]

 

[Check]

Reer Henny we taking this W


Congrats to her

No this is a Somali win

 

[Bernie Madoff]

No this is a Somali win

I suggest you sit this one out my yute

 

[Apollo]

Good luck to her, but I don't think she will win. Just looked up all the previous winners and they were much more high profile (like Malala).

 

[SOULSEARCHING]

She kind of has that squished face like hallima aden

 

[Check]

I suggest you sit this one out my yute

 

[Emily]

Good for her, hope she gets it

She looks like Candace Owens

 

[Louis Vuitton Don]

She’ll get it hopefully

 

[Geeljire lotus]

She deserves it tbh

 

[AussieHustler]

Canadian sisters on front lines of rebuilding Somalia .

The Elman sisters are bathed in the honey glow of Somalia’s late afternoon sun, the only sounds coming from an iPhone in a pink case that chirps continuously and the bursts of chatter from women upstairs. A sign in the corner of the office where they sit reads: “Real Men Don’t Rape.”

For those who know the Canadian sisters from Ottawa, it is rare to see them together, just talking, sitting still, not working on Somalia’s front lines.

Iman has just come from work and is still dressed in her military fatigues, a black hijab discreetly tucked beneath the lieutenant’s cap. She turns heads on Mogadishu’s streets: it is rare, if not unheard of, to have a female commander, let alone one who is only 21.

When she joined the military two years ago, women were given two pairs of pants to sew together to make a skirt. Knowing it would be hard to fight in a skirt, Iman told them one pair of pants would do. Now she commands 90 men in her battalion.

“Being raised in Canada, I was taught you’re no different from any guy, you’re equal, you’re the same,” she says. “When I went into the military they said, ‘You can’t do that, it’s not your job.’ I wanted to break some of the stereotypes here.”

Ilwad, 23, is smashing stereotypes, too, speaking out about violence against women and promoting their rights at the Elman Peace Centre, which she runs with her mother, Fartuun Adan.

She left Ottawa in 2010, to visit her mom. But she couldn’t leave.

“A lot of people didn’t understand what compelled me to come back here, and even more so, what caused me to stay,” she says. “It’s hard not to be here. I’ve been back to Canada several times but every time I’m there I feel I’m just so much more of use around here. I feel guilty almost.

“Things are changing so rapidly in Somalia. It’s like we’re in the middle of a revolution and I feel like I’m a part of that.”

Their father, Elman Ali Ahmed, would be proud. Ahmed was a well-known peace activist in Mogadishu during the early 1990s, when Somalia’s government collapsed and sectarian warfare enveloped the country. With his wife, he cared for orphans and ran community programs, including one called “Lights for Peace,” which lit the city’s dark corridors, controlled by rival warlords.

On March 9, 1996, he was shot in the back by hooded gunmen in a crime that was never solved.
“Elman did not belong to any political faction and had been outspoken in criticizing all political leaders for the continuing violence,” read Amnesty International’s statement at the time. “He had actively promoted a culture of peace and reconciliation and, unlike many businessmen went about unarmed.”

Elman was 42 when he was killed and three years later, in 1999, his wife moved to Ottawa with their young daughters, Ilwad, Iman and their eldest sister Almas, who is with the Canadian military reserves.

“I look at these girls and I see a piece of him in each of them: the creativity, the energy; the courage and ideas,” says their uncle, Ahmed Abdisalam Adan.

“None of them knew their father but the genes are there.”

Fartuun Adan raised her girls in Canada but returned to Somalia for good in 2007 to continue her humanitarian work. This March, she received an International Women of Courage Award from the U.S. Department of State.

In 2010, when Ilwad and Iman returned to Mogadishu, Al Shabab controlled most of the city. While the Al Qaeda group still has a strong, covert presence and the ability to launch attacks — such as the assault on the Supreme Court last month — the capital is no longer a war zone.

“Now I can drive down the road by myself, I can walk, I can be out until 11 at night or even past that. When I first came the curfew was at 1 p.m.,” says Ilwan. “Flying bullets and stray bullets were the norm. Now when I hear one shot I flinch because I’m not used to it anymore.”

But there is still a long way to go before the Shabab is completely conquered, especially outside of Mogadishu, where Iman has fought or led security operations.

The work of the Elman sisters highlights many underlying tensions in the city: the role of the returning diaspora; women and the stigma of speaking out on gender violence; and the building of a military that can be trusted.

Those issues converge upstairs at the Peace Centre, where a 40-year-old woman is cuddling her 1-month-old daughter. To protect her identity we’ll call her Asha. Asha was abandoned by her husband’s family after a divorce and could only survive by trading sex with soldiers for food and a place to sleep. She says she was gang raped, eventually became pregnant, and left to give birth by herself before she was rescued in a town outside of Mogadishu in April.

After spending a few weeks at the Elmans’ safe house, she is now being reunited with her family.

In March, the New York-based Human Rights Watch issued a scathing report accusing Somalia’s security forces and militias of raping displaced Somalis who had fled to camps to escape the famine and conflict in the country’s south.

The report followed the story of 27-year-old Lul Ali Osman Barake. She said she was gang raped by uniformed men, but when she reported the crime to police and a local journalist, she and the reporter were put in jail. It took a month — and international outcry — before the government acknowledged the incident.

Rape and issues of gender violence, such as forced genital mutilation of young girls, are not topics easily discussed in Somalia. Keeping the issue at the forefront is a struggle.

“This has to be addressed and the focus now is on concealing it,” Ilwad says. “So will there be a push to change Somalia’s image by just covering it, or will there be an acknowledgement that it’s happening and actually do something about it?”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/...ers_on_front_lines_of_rebuilding_somalia.html