Fatima Jibrell

Fatima Jibrell فاطمة جبريل
Birth name	Fadumo Jibriil
Birth	1948 Somalia
Ethnicity	Somali
Occupation(s)	Environmental activist, Filmmaker

Fatima Jibrell (Somali: Fadumo Jibriil, Arabic: فاطمة جبريل‎) is a prominent Somali-American environmental activist. She is the co-founder and Executive Director of the Horn of Africa Relief and Development Organization ("Horn Relief"), co-founder of Sun Fire Cooking, and was instrumental in the creation of the Women’s Coalition for Peace.

Biography

Jibrell was born in 1948 in Somalia to a nomadic family.^[1][2] When she was 16, she and her mother left their native Somalia to join her father in the United States. There, Fatima graduated from high school and earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees, including a Master's in Social work from the University of Connecticut. She also became an American citizen.^[3][4] In 1969, she returned to Somalia and worked for the government, whereafter she met and married her husband, Ali Abdulrahman. The couple eventually returned to the United States, where they had and raised five daughters.^[3]

Environmentalism

Spurred on by the Somali civil war that began in 1991,^[3] Jibrell co-founded the Horn of Africa Relief and Development Organization, colloquially referred to as Horn Relief, of which she is the Executive Director.^[5][6] Horn Relief describes its mission as:

"...supporting sustainable peace and development in Somalia through grassroots capacity building, youth development, promotion of human rights and women's leadership, and protection of the environment."^[6]

Jibrell was instrumental in the creation of the Women’s Coalition for Peace to encourage more participation by women in politics and social issues.^[5][7] She also co-founded Sun Fire Cooking, which aims to introduce solar cookers to Somalia so as to reduce the reliance on charcoal as a fuel.^[8][9]

In 2008, Jibrell wrote and co-produced a short film entitled Charcoal Traffic, which employs a fictional storyline to educate the public about the charcoal crisis.^[10]

Anti-charcoal campaign

Through Horn Relief, Jibrell mounted a successful campaign to salvage old-growth forests of acacia trees in the northeastern part of Somalia.^[1] These trees, which can grow up to 500 years old, were being cut down to make charcoal since this so-called "black gold" is highly in demand in the Arabian Peninsula, where the region's Bedouin tribes believe the acacia to be sacred.^[1][11] However, while being a relatively inexpensive fuel that meets a user's needs, the production of charcoal oftentimes leads to the deforestation and desertification.^[11] As a way of addressing this problem, Jibrell and Horn Relief trained a group of adolescents to educate the public on the permanent damage that producing charcoal can create. In 1999, Horn Relief coordinated a peace march in the northeastern Puntland region of Somalia to put an end to the so-called "charcoal wars." As a result of Jibrell's lobbying and education efforts, the Puntland government in 2000 prohibited the exportation of charcoal. The government has also since enforced the ban, which has reportedly led to an 80% drop in exports of the product.^[5]

Awards

Fatima was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2002 for her efforts against environmental degradation and desertification.^[5] In 2008, she also won the National Geographic Society/Buffett Foundation Award for Leadership in Conservation.^[12]

Notes

External links

• Horn Relief official website
• Sun Fire Cooking official website
• Charcoal Traffic at the Internet Movie Database