#Ilwad Elman

[asoftenderlove]

MASHA'ALLAH

[jmjafrx]

These Two Young African Women Were Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize – OkayAfrica

“This year’s nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize are out and among the names are Somalian social rights activist Ilwad Elman and Libyan law student Hajer Sharief. The Nobel Peace Prize, first awarded in 1901, is said to honor “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses” according to the Nobel Prize organization. What’s even more impressive is that both women are on the short list of the Director for the Peace Research Institute Oslo–the list is thought to highlight the strongest contenders for the prize according to those who work in the field.…”

https://www.okayafrica.com/these-two-young-african-women-were-nominated-for-the-nobel-peace-prize/

Read the post: https://ift.tt/2o8KMhS

[dippedanddripped]

As one of the youngest and most prominent voices for peacebuilding in Somalia, Ilwad Elman has already been voted African Young Personality of the Year and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

A decade ago, Elman returned to Somalia, where the majority of Mogadishu and South Central Regions were lost to the Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group Al-Shabaab. It was here – in the wake of a devastating civil war that left 400,000 dead due to lack of food and water, and a generation of young Somalis traumatized by sexual warfare and violent child exploitation– that Elman and her mother opened the country's first rape crisis center.

The project has since been scaled to nine different regions while the Elman Peace Centre continues to develop programs for the disarmament and rehabilitation of child soldiers and adults defecting from armed groups.

In her short career, Elman has made an impact at the grassroots level and the international diplomatic stage. Her work has recently infiltrated the world of streetwear, offering a blueprint for how designers and platforms can empower activist projects in a meaningful way.

Elman sat down with Highsnobiety in Berlin recently while she was visiting to receive the 2020 German Africa Prize for her contributions to peacebuilding over the past decade. We spoke to her about her collaboration with Daily Paper, the healing power of surfing, and the intersection of activism, streetwear, and rehabilitation.

What sparked your interest in activism? My mom and my dad were both ardent human rights activists. Before the war in Somalia, they were focused on orphans and youth with substance abuse problems. When the war broke out, those very vulnerable young people were co-opted by the warlords and used as human shields to perpetuate the conflict.

[My parents] had a very simple recipe to building peace at the height of the conflict then, which was “drop the gun, pick up the pen,” giving young people an opportunity for education and skills training in exchange for handing in the weapons.

My father decided to stay in Somalia to continue to do the work, and my mother would leave the country with my sisters and I. Unfortunately, while we were on the traditional refugee route and finally got asylum in Canada, he was killed for the work that he was doing.

My sister and I always knew that there was a higher calling. We were always raised to know that you have to live your life with purpose, but moving back to Somalia and this kind of activism wasn't one that was prescribed to us. I think the torch of activism was just passed down.

What inspired you to try yoga and surf therapy to help survivors process their trauma?

I don't know if you’ve ever surfed before but it's very hard. It commands so much power in the body. We read all this research about how it's being used to treat PTSD in war veterans and so we were intrigued about introducing kids to the ocean, helping them to feel safe in the water with a partner, allowing them to trust someone and try to float, to focus on nothing else.

We're working with children in armed conflict and with survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. What we’ve found is that, consistently, is that it's considered weak or ungrateful to even speak about the things that you are so lucky to have survived. [But] is there ever the [post] in post-traumatic stress disorder? When you're constantly in survival mode, constantly coping?

So we asked, “What are the things that create solidarity and community, and an opportunity to draw parallels between a physical activity and then a mental cognitive kind of situation?” We use that as an entry point of, okay, “When's the last time you felt safe in the water? When's the last time you actually laid back in the water and trusted someone to hold you up?” And then that creates a dialogue that you otherwise wouldn't have.

The same with our art therapy, give a kid a canvas and they will draw what is on top of mind. And we use this in our rehabilitation and reintegration program where kids stay with us. The collaboration that we did with Daily Paper actually took the drawings from some of the kids in our program. And that was, I think, a really interesting collaboration because it created immersive empathy.

So the Daily Paper collab was part of your art therapy project and incorporated illustrations by the kids in the project? How did this happen?

So, I know the founders. I met them on social media, [I was] just supporting and cheerleading the work that we were doing, and they asked, “how can we support you?”

It's a very conscious brand; they try to tell a story and try to cultivate a community around their consumers. It's not just about putting on really cool clothes but trying to send messages of solidarity of activism and activating the people that are in their community already.

The art therapy program is somewhere that we see the most impact and the transformational potential in healing society. In the humanitarian context, [art therapy] is still considered too fluffy or soft, and you can never get funding for these kinds of things. It created an opportunity where we could have an unconventional partnership with a brand, to actually tangibly support what we know to be a vital intervention.

Despite the kind of collaborations that we have with UN and government agencies, these things that actually shape identities and bring people together are really hard to get funding for. So that was one of the big achievements of that collaboration: The T-shirts sold out very fast and the [proceeds were] used to fund our art therapy program.

It was really nice to see people from all over the world rocking the tees and they had the kids' names on the tags. So they also felt really proud to see their creations everywhere.

What advice would you give someone who is looking to get into activism but might not know where to start?

I'm very inspired by the younger generations globally, generation Z. There’s no “activation” that's necessary. Our world seems to be fraught with more human suffering, whether it's climate change, manmade or natural disasters, and we're hyper-connected right now.

The younger generation right now is mobilizing and organizing. We're moving away from a slacktivism if you will, where you’re just reading an article or liking a post. Young people are actually getting on the front lines now.

I think that my advice for young people that want to be part of the change that they want to see in the world, and this is something I think was also a hard lesson for me too, is that you don't always have to start your own thing. It's always possible to also support an existing initiative, being a part of something.

The digital age that we're in right now provides opportunities for people from all over the world to align along with ideology and values. And sometimes that doesn't even have to be in-person. We're creating communities and subcultures and positive identities through online engagement, through social media, through cultural platforms like Highsnobiety, where we can actually pick our own tribe.

That will have reverberations beyond just the traditional field activism that some of us have taken on. So I think my biggest advice is just to educate yourself to be accessible, to put out your ideas because that does actually gravitate and create opportunities for co-creation and collaboration.

Right now we are more polarised than ever. What tools do you find helpful when you’re trying to find common ground on the international stage?

I think we're definitely in a polarized world right now. If there's any silver lining to this pandemic, I think it's that we all entered a crash course in empathy. Everywhere in the world, we essentially stood still at the same time. People were going through the same thing, suffering on the same scale. It shows how countries that are more developed, were maybe for the first time also understanding what loss could look like at such a massive scale as the global south.

I found that it's useful to lead with the things that I'm for, rather than the thing that I'm against. Because the things that I'm against will come with rebuttal or disagreement. If I talk about the things that I'm for in more of a proactive solution-oriented approach, I feel like that helps create a better sense of understanding.

[stylevitae]

Ilwad Elman: Bringing peace several women and children at a time

Ilwad Elman: Bringing peace several women and children at a time

Ilwad Elman at just 23 has done more to bring peace to her country and the world than most people in their lifetime. Perhaps loosing her father Elman Ali Ahmed to war at a very young age could have been a major motivation but the fact remains that her work with women and children in Somalia has gone a long way to fostering peace in her War recovering country. In honor of their father and husband…

[haraldbulling]

Somalia

[bunlyyy]

2022년 Right Livelihood Award 수상자

2022년 Right Livelihood Award 수상자

2022년 Right Livelihood Award 수상자 중 3명의 아프리카인소말리아에서 태어난 Fartuun Adan과 그녀의 딸 Ilwad Elman과 Ugandan Dickens Kamugisha는 2022년 Right Livelihood Award 수상자 중 한 명입니다.그들은 위험에 직면했음에도 불구하고 인권을 위해 싸운 것에 대해 영광을 받았습니다. 스웨덴에 기반을 둔 NGO Right Livelihood는 목요일 인권과 평화 증진에 기여한 용기를 인정받아 Adan, Elman, Kamugisha를 2022 Right Livelihood Award 수상자로 선정했습니다. Adan과 Elman은 테러리즘과 젠더 기반 폭력에 직면해 있는 소말리아의 평화, 비무장화 및 인권 증진을 위해 특별히…

[armeniaitn]

2022 Aurora Prize nominations now open

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/society/2022-aurora-prize-nominations-now-open-73307-12-05-2021/

2022 Aurora Prize nominations now open

The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative announced the opening of the nomination period for the 2022 Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity and called for putting forward inspiring humanitarians from across the globe. The announcement was made during a special event at the Matenadaran, where the names of 2021 Aurora Humanitarians were also revealed in accordance with the tradition.

The Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity is a global humanitarian award, whose mission is to recognize and support those who risk their own lives, health or freedom to save the lives, health or freedom of others suffering as a result of violent conflict, atrocity crimes or other major human rights violations. On behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, an Aurora Prize Laureate receives a US $1,000,000 award and a unique opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by supporting the organizations that help people in need.

“Being named the 2020 Aurora Prize Laureates has helped us immensely – it added value to our efforts and opened so many doors for us to further increase our impact. In our line of work, support means so much. That is why we encourage everyone, wherever they may live, to nominate the people who inspire them for this award. You never know, it might just be the help your hero or heroine needs right now,” said Ilwad Elman who leads the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre in Somalia together with her mother Fartuun Adan. Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman became the Aurora Prize Laureates in 2020, after being chosen among other 585 unique candidates nominated for the Prize.

Until October 31, 2021, any person can submit a nomination for candidates they believe have overcome great personal challenges to help others. Each nomination is reviewed by a panel of professionals and experts in the humanitarian field. The Aurora Humanitarians and the Prize Laureate are then chosen from the shortlisted nominees by the Aurora Prize Selection Committee comprised of Noble Prize Laureates, former high officials and global human rights activists. A more detailed description of the Aurora Prize criteria and selection process is available here.

The 2022 Aurora Humanitarians (Finalists) will be announced on April 24, 2022.

Top photo: A rescue operation by Aquarius in 2018. © Laurin Schmid / SOS MEDITERRANEE

About the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative

The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative is a foundation that seeks to address on-the-ground humanitarian challenges around the world with the focus on helping the most destitute. Its mission is rooted in the Armenian history as the Initiative was founded on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors and strives to transform this experience into a global movement.

All Aurora’s activities are based on the universal concept of Gratitude in Action. It implies that countless people around the world who have received aid in time of crisis can best express their gratitude by offering similar assistance to someone else. By involving Aurora supporters around the world, this will become a global endeavor that will snowball to expand the circle of saviors and most importantly – the number of those saved.

Addressing urgent humanitarian challenges, the Initiative provides a second chance to those who need it the most. True to its vision – “We believe that even in the darkest times, a brighter future is in the hands of those who are committed to giving others help and hope” – Aurora welcomes all who embrace this philosophy.

This eight-year commitment (2015 to 2023, in remembrance of the eight years of the Armenian Genocide 1915-1923) aims to promote action-based philanthropy focused on tangible results. This is achieved through the Initiative’s various programs: Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, Aurora for Artsakh, #AraratChallenge movement, Aurora Dialogues, Aurora Grants, Aurora Community, Aurora Index, and the 100 LIVES Initiative.

The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative is the vision of philanthropists Vartan Gregorian (1934-2021), Noubar Afeyan and Ruben Vardanyan who have been joined by thousands of supporters and partners. Aurora’s Chair, Dr. Tom Catena, draws on his experience as a surgeon, veteran, humanitarian and the 2017 Aurora Prize laureate to spread the message of Gratitude in Action to a global audience.

The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative is represented by three organizations – the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative Foundation, Inc. (New York, USA), the 100 Lives Foundation (Geneva, Switzerland) and the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative Charitable Foundation (Yerevan, Armenia).

Read original article here.

[somalilandsun1]

The Ilwad Road to winning the German Africa Award 2020 Somalilandsun: Somalia human rights activist Ilwad Elman  has just won the German Africa Prize 2020. The prestigious award 

[massispost]

New Post has been published on https://massispost.com/2020/09/fartuun-adan-and-ilwad-elman-from-somalia-named-2020-aurora-prize-laureates/

Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman from Somalia Named 2020 Aurora Prize Laureates

NEW YORK — The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative awarded the fifth annual Aurora…

[nofreakingwhey]

In May last year I was invited to 2019 Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development in Sweden. The event ‘is designed to challenge conventional wisdom across all development sectors. Small, deep-dive workshops and roundtable discussions will present specific challenges and explore solutions.’ 

To begin the adventure I flew from London Heathrow to the Stockholm Arlanda Airport. And once there, always good to grab an avocado toast for the road! 

Look at this lovely city! Then I headed over to the Skanstulls Hostel. Recommend! Rooms are tiny, but the the place is clean and the location is fab.

Because of COVID-19 the conference this year will be online. More details: 

11 May 2020 09:00 - 22 May 2020 18:00 In recognition of the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, for the first time ever the Stockholm Forum will leverage innovation and cutting-edge technology to bring together communities virtually in a reduced format on 11–22 May 2020.

The Forum will combine high-level interactive dialogues with public panels and closed-door partner-led sessions. All registered participants will be given access to all public sessions, including the keynote address on ‘Sustaining Peace in the Times of COVID-19’ by Ilwad Elman, Director of Programs and Development at Elman Peace Mogadishu on 13 May 15.00–17.00 CET.

To register for the Stockholm Forum 2020 public panels, please click the following link.

Of course, once in Sweden, all you can do is dance to Robyn on repeat. Dancing on my own, across Scandanavia.

[trevannefoxton-blog]

A SOMALIAN ACTIVIST NAMED ALMAAS ELMAN WAS SHOT AND KILLED IN MOGADISHU

On Wednesday, the organizer and sister of Nobel Peace Prize-nominate activist Ilwad Elman was shot dead while while riding in a car. She was a prominent Somali rights and an organizer who was murdered in Mogadishu. According to a Somalian news site “Hiiraan,” she died after being hit while riding inside of a car in the Halane Compound. She was in a car along an road outside of an airport. The…

[brandonimhotep]

These Two Young African Women Were Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize C This year's nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize are out and among the names are Somalian social rights activist Ilwad Elman and Libyan law student Hajer Sharief. The Nobel Peace Prize, first awarded in 1901, is said to honor "the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses" according to the Nobel Prize organization. What's even more impressive is that both women are on the short list of the Director for the Peace Research Institute Oslo–the list is thought to highlight the strongest contenders for the prize according to those who work in the field. The two women, Elman, 29, and Sharief, 26, have been important catalysts for peacebuilding in their respective countries. Both are part of former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's initiative Extremely Together, which brings together 10 young change makers from around the world, as well as have appointed positions from former UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Elman was born in Mogadishu to two parents who were peace activists in their own right, Fartuun Adan and Elman Ali Ahmed. With no signs of the war easing in the early 90's, Elman's mother left with her and her sisters, eventually receiving asylum in Canada some years later. Her father was assassinated for assisting in the rehabilitation of youth co-opted by war. In 2010, at 19, Elman decided to return to Mogadishu and do what she could to further messages of peace. Since then she has led many social programs, particularly those focused on women's rights in Somalia. Her many accomplishments include founding Somalia's first rape crisis center for survivors of sexual and gender-based violence. Source: okayafrica /com https://www.instagram.com/p/B3Exz9cA7u3/?igshid=1ndjv2531cft8

[armeniaitn]

2020 Aurora Prize awarded to Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/society/2020-aurora-prize-awarded-to-fartuun-adan-and-ilwad-elman-59109-17-09-2020/

2020 Aurora Prize awarded to Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman

September 17, 2020 – 17:09 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The Aurora Humanitarian Initiative awarded the fifth annual Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity to Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman, the mother-and-daughter team who lead the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre in Somalia.

As Aurora Prize Laureates, they will receive a $1,000,000 award and a unique opportunity to continue the cycle of giving by supporting the organizations that have inspired their humanitarian action. Adan and Elman have selected three organizations – Love Does, Panzi Foundation, and Prajwala – that fight for freedom and human rights, provide healthcare to marginalized populations, and save victims of sex-trafficking to be the beneficiaries of their million dollar prize.

The duo were chosen among the 2020 Aurora Humanitarians, or finalists, announced on April 24, 2020. Besides the Somali human rights defenders, those outstanding heroes include Congolese activist Angélique Namaika, refugee rescuers Sophie Beau and Klaus Vogel, and educator Sakena Yacoobi from Afghanistan.

To date, Aurora has launched or supported numerous projects in nearly 30 countries, benefitting almost a million people suffering from the atrocities of war, famine, lack of healthcare, genocide or human rights violations. Granted on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors, the Aurora Prize seeks to expand the global humanitarian movement by enabling humanitarians worldwide to continue the cycle of giving.

Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman have been protecting women’s rights, promoting peacebuilding, and rehabilitating child soldiers for many years. Their courage, resilience, and unwavering commitment to the people of Somalia has brought this mother and daughter team global recognition.

Read original article here

[mabriga]

YVONNE CHAKA CHAKA AND ILWAD ELMAN WILL BE HONOURED WITH GLOBAL GOOD AWARDS AT THE 2017 “BET AWARDS”

YVONNE CHAKA CHAKA AND ILWAD ELMAN WILL BE HONOURED WITH GLOBAL GOOD AWARDS AT THE 2017 “BET AWARDS”

BET Africa, part of Viacom’s African multimedia portfolio revealed that iconic musician and humanitarian Yvonne Chaka Chaka will be honoured with the 2017 “BET Awards” International Global Good Star and Power Award, while singer Amanda Black has been nominated for the much coveted Viewer’s Choice “Best International Act”. They will be awarded at the 2017 “BET Awards”in Los Angeles at the annual…