Ilwad Elman | |
|---|---|
Ilwaad Elman | |
 Elman in 2015 | |
| Born | 1988or1989(age 34–35) |
| Occupation | Social Activist |
| Parent(s) | Elman Ali Ahmed and Fartuun Adan |
Ilwad Elman (Somali : Ilwaad Elman) is a Somali-Canadian social activist. She works at the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center in Mogadishu alongside her mother Fartuun Adan, the NGO's founder. She was voted the African Young Personality (Female) of the Year during the 2016 Africa Youth Awards. [1]
Ilwad was born between 1989 and 1990 in Mogadishu, Somalia. [2] One of four daughters, [3] she is the child of the late entrepreneur and peace activist Elman Ali Ahmed and social activist Fartuun Adan. [4]
Her father was an ardent peace activist in the 1990s, who coined the famous mantra in Somalia "Drop the Gun, Pick up the Pen"; he was assassinated in 1996 for his human rights work and is known to this day as the Somali Father of Peace.
Ilwad returned from Canada to Somalia in 2010 whilst the conflict still raged heavily and the majority of Mogadishu and South Central Regions of Somalia were lost to the control of the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Al-Shabaab. She remained in Somalia ever since, alongside her mother Fartuun Adan co-founding the first rape crisis centre for survivors of sexual and gender based violence, designing interventions aimed at security sector reform to create an inclusive space for women in peace building, and developing programs for the disarmament and rehabilitation of child soldiers and adults defecting from armed groups for their socio-economic empowerment, rehabilitation and reintegration.
On November 20, 2019, local authorities confirmed her sister Almaas Elman, who had also returned to Somalia as an aid worker, had been shot and killed in a car, near the Mogadishu airport. [5]
In honour of Ahmed, his wife Fartuun Adan and their children established the Elman Peace Centre in Mogadishu. Adan serves as the NGO's Executive Director, while their daughter Ilwad works alongside her. [2] Ilwad serves therein as Director of Programs and Development. [6] She is responsible for designing and overseeing the Elman Peace & Human Rights Centre's programs with a broad portfolio focus on
She also helps run Sister Somalia, a subsidiary of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Center. [7] [8] The country's first program for assistance of victims of gender-based violence, it provides counseling, health and housing support for women in need. Elman's work has helped raise awareness locally on the issue, and encouraged changes in government policy. She has also carried out educational workshops for vulnerable members of society, and designed and implemented projects promoting alternative livelihood opportunities for both young and old. [9]
In mid-2012,Mogadishu held its first ever Technology, Entertainment, Design (TEDx) conference. The event was organized by the First Somali Bank to showcase improvements in business, development and security to potential Somali and international investors. [10] Ilwad was featured as a guest speaker, where she explained the role of Sister Somalia in the country's post-conflict reconstruction process. [9]
Opposite 76 other activists from 36 different nations in Africa, Elman in 2011 represented Somalia during the "Climb Up, Speak OUT" campaign on Mount Kilimanjaro. The event was organized by UNite Africa under UNwomen, and concluded with the participants committing to end violence against women and girls. [9]
In 2013, Elman was also featured in the documentary Through the Fire, along with Hawa Abdi and Edna Adan Ismail. [11] She likewise appeared in the 2014 film Live From Mogadishu, which focuses on the Mogadishu Music/Peace Festival of March 2013. [12] Organized by the ensemble Waayaha Cusub and the philanthropist Bill Brookman, it was the first international music festival to be held in Somalia's capital in years. [12] [13]
Beyond her duties at Elman Peace, [7] Ilwad is an advocate for the Kofi Annan foundation's latest initiative called Extremely Together, [14] where she and 9 other youth leaders under the mentorship of Mr. Kofi Annan are Preventing Violent Extremism by inspiring, engaging and empowering youth globally.
Ilwad additionally serves as the chair of the Child Protection Gender Based Violence Case Management Group in Mogadishu; is a founding member of the Advisory Committee for Researching Gender Based Violence Social Norms in Somalia and South Sudan, is a member of the international practitioners network for civilian casualty recording, an expert in the Women Waging Peace Network for Inclusive Security, and a strategic advisory group member on the global child protection area of responsibility.
She has served as the One Young World Ambassador to Somalia since 2013; completed President Barack Obama's flagship White House fellowship for Young African Leaders in 2014 and in the same year was appointed youth ambassador to Somalia for Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict.
In an exclusive report, in May, 2016, The Washington Post described the role of Elman, and the Elman Center, in rehabilitating boys, who had been freed from serving as child soldiers, for warlords, only to have been secretly recruited to serve as spies by Somalia's new intelligence agency. [15]
Ilwad briefed the UN Security Council on the Protection of Civilians debate in 2015; it was the first time a civil society representative was invited to speak on this issue before the Security Council, as well as the first time the annual thematic debate focused on women's empowerment and participation. She later co-wrote the Youth Action Agenda on Countering Violent Extremism which was cited in the historic UN Security Council Resolution 2250 on youth, peace and security. August 2016, Ilwad was appointed by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon an expert advisor on Youth, Peace & Security and has been tasked to counsel a study to develop a strategy on UNSCR 2250.
From the front lines of conflict and often in the face of extreme insecurities; Ilwad continues to innovate the advocacy efforts of the EPHRC. Through the combined effect of the grass-root programmatic interventions she designs as well as her global advocacy; she has sparked national movements internally and garnered international attention externally to yield action towards durable solutions for the human suffering and protracted crisis in Somalia.
Ilwad was honoured with the
In 2014, Elman was appointed a YALI Fellow by the United States Department of State. [6] In 2018, she was invited to attend the International Leaders Programme of the United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office. [21]
Human rights in Somalia throughout the late 20th-century and early 21st-century were considered dire, but have gradually improved over the following years. Human rights are guaranteed in the Federal Constitution, which was adopted in August 2012. They fall under the Ministry of Human Rights established in August 2013. The central authorities concurrently inaugurated a National Human Rights Day, endorsed an official Human Rights Roadmap, and completed Somalia's first National Gender Policy.
Lisa J. Shannon is an American author, human rights activist, and speaker known for her work in the international women's movement, including founding Run for Congo Women, co-founding Sister Somalia with Fartuun Adan Abdisalan, co-founding and serving as CEO of Every Woman Treaty. She is author of A Thousand Sisters: My Journey Into the Worst Place on Earth to Be a Woman. Her second book, Mama Koko and the Hundred Gunmen: An Ordinary Family's Extraordinary Tale of Love, Loss, and Survival in Congo, follows one family's struggle for survival in the shadow of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army.
Hawa Abdi Dhiblawe was a Somali human rights activist and physician. She was the founder and chairperson of the Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation (DHAF), a non-profit organization.
The Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim controversy began in February 2013 when journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim interviewed Lul Ali Osman, who claimed that she was raped by government security forces while living in an internally displaced peoples camp in Mogadishu, Somalia. The two were arrested, tried, and sentenced to a year in prison for having allegedly fabricated the story. The trial was described by some human rights groups as politically motivated. Osman was later in the month acquitted following an appeal, and Ibrahim's sentence was reduced to six months. It was concurrently announced that an Independent Task Force on Human Rights had been established, which would review his case to see if due process has been followed. Ibrahim was released from detention the following month, on 17 March 2013.
Fartuun Abdisalaan Adan is a Somali social activist. She is the executive director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre.
Elman Ali Ahmed was a Somali entrepreneur and social activist.
The Elman Peace and Human Rights Center is a non-governmental organization based in Mogadishu, Somalia. It was established by Fartuun Adan in honour of her late husband Elman Ali Ahmed, a local entrepreneur and peace activist. Adan serves as the NGO's Executive Director, while their daughter Ilwad works alongside her. The organization was founded in 1990 and is dedicated to promoting peace, cultivating leadership and empowering the marginalized brackets of society to be decision makers in the processes that ensure their well-being.
Ifrah Ahmed is a Somali-Irish social activist. She is the founder of the United Youth of Ireland non-governmental organization and the Ifrah Foundation.
The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is an international humanitarian award recognizing individuals for humanitarian work. It is awarded on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian genocide.
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Hilina Berhanu Degefa is an Ethiopian women's rights activist and researcher. She is a co-founder of The Yellow Movement, a youth-led feminist advocacy and empowerment program based in Addis Ababa and Mekelle University. She was a 2015 recipient of a Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders, the youngest to receive the honor at the age of 22. Hilina is also a Women Deliver Young Leaders Fellow, class of 2020. She is the first Ethiopian civil society representative to brief the UN Security Council.
Asma Khalifa is a Libyan women's rights and peace activist. Her work has spanned across numerous countries including Libya, Yemen and Syria. She won the Luxembourg Peace Prize in 2016 and was named as one of the 100 most influential young Africans of 2017 by the Africa Youth Awards.
Halima Ali Adan is a Somali gender rights activist and an expert on female genital mutilation (FGM). She is national co-chair of the Gender Based Violence (GBV) working group and program manager for Save Somali Women and Children (SSWC), a non-profit humanitarian organization based in Somalia.
Almaas Elman was a Somali-Canadian humanitarian aid worker, the eldest daughter of a prominent family of humanitarian aid-workers. Her parents were Elman Ali Ahmed and Fartuun Adan. She, her mother and her sisters emigrated to Canada in the early 1990s. Her father was gunned down in 1996. Her mother helped found the Elman Peace Center. One of her sisters Ilwad Elman was a short-listed candidate for the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize. Her husband, a Somali-Swedish tech entrepreneur, was Zakaria Hersi. They married in 2017.
Zakaria Hersi is a Swedish-Somali citizen, best known for his role in the development and propagation of Truecaller in Africa and Middle East.
Deqa Yasin Hagi Yusuf is a Human Rights Advocate and Social Justice Activist, specifically in the areas of gender equality, women's empowerment, disability, children and minority rights. In 2017 she was appointed the Minister for Women and Human Rights in Somalia until October 2020.
Iman Elman is a Somali-Canadian military officer. When she was a child, Elman's parents were peace advocates in wartorn Somalia. When the dangers of working in Somalia increased her parents agreed that her father, Elman Ali Ahmed would stay in Somalia, and continue to work for Peace, while her mother, Fartuun Adan would raise their daughters in Canada. When her daughters reached adult-hood Fartuun returned to Somalia, to renew her work for Peace. Iman's elder sisters, Almaas Elman and Ilwad Elman, also returned to Somalia, followed by Iman herself.
Zahra Mohamed Ahmad is a Somalian human rights activist and lawyer. She is the founder of the Somali Women Development Center. She was awarded the International Women of Courage Award in 2021.
Hajer Sharief, is a Libyan peace and human rights activist. She co-leads the work of the Together We Build It (TWBI) organization in Libya. In 2011 and at the age of 19, Sharief co-founded TWBI to build peace in Libya and promote human rights. She is one of UN Women's 12 Champions on Women, Peace and Security, and Human Rights; and a member of the Extremely Together young leaders initiative, begun by Kofi Annan and the Kofi Annan Foundation. In 2020, Forbes named Sharief as one of "Africa's 50 Most Powerful Women", and she was listed by Avanec Media among their "100 Most Influential African Women" for 2020. A winner of the Student Peace Prize in 2017, she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.
Elman comes from a prominent family of activists whose work has focused on social justice, women's rights and rehabilitating children affected by Somalia's decades-long war.
'We still have a long way to go, but the leadership displayed by the minister of internal security to remove the children from the facility and hand them over to us for care and rehabilitation is a step in the right direction,' said Ilwad Elman, the center's director of programs and the daughter of its namesake, Elman Ali Ahmed, a Somali human rights activist who was assassinated in 1996.
Media related to Ilwad Elman at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
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