On Tuesday, March 8, 2022, Fistula Foundation CEO Kate Grant hosted a one-hour conversation with Edna Adan, a legendary healthcare leader from Somaliland and a leading voice in global women’s health.
Edna has dedicated her life to serving the most vulnerable women—including fistula patients—in her beloved Somaliland.
During the broadcast, she talked about growing up in a country where girls were not even allowed to go to school, and how she broke barriers from a young age. But her most enduring achievement, among a long list of remarkable “firsts,” was building a maternity hospital in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, atop the ruins of civil war.
“What convinced me was seeing the destruction of the place,” said Edna Adan. “I couldn’t bring back the dead, but I could certainly build a hospital—and certainly train health professionals. … Today, on that trash dump, on that site where they used to kill people, we have delivered over 31,000 babies.”
Video length: 51:53