KuruvillaPandikattu SJ
Dr. Edna Adan Ismail, a nurse-midwife, hospital founder, and healthcare advocate, has courageously worked to change cultural, religious, and medical norms surrounding women’s health in East Africa, thereby improving the lives of tens of thousands of women and girls in the region and beyond. She receives this year’s award in recognition of her extraordinary efforts to leverage the power of the sciences to affirm the dignity of women and help them flourish physically and spiritually, utilising the resources of her Muslim faith. Her numerous accomplishments include the establishment of Edna Adan University and Edna Adan Hospital, which have considerably reduced maternal mortality in Somaliland, and her tireless campaign to end female genital mutilation (FGM) worldwide.
Edna, like Mother Teresa, who was awarded the first Templeton Prize in 1973, has devoted herself to assisting a community that lacked adequate medical treatment, achieving a global impact.
It is believed that this year’s award is the highest international honour ever presented to an African woman. “We are delighted to honour Edna Adan Ismail, a woman who has used the teachings of her faith, the influence of her family, and her education in science to improve the health and opportunities of some of the world’s most vulnerable women and girls,” said Heather Templeton Dill, president of the John Templeton Foundation. “Motivated by a fervent belief in women’s inherent dignity and divinely bestowed potential, she has effected a transformation of female health in her native country. She has used her positions of authority to contend vehemently that, contrary to what some have believed, female circumcision is contrary to the teachings of Islam and extremely detrimental to women, citing Islamic doctrines.
The £1.1 million Templeton Prize is one of the largest annual individual awards for science-religion dialogue in the world. It was established by the late global investor and philanthropist Sir John Templeton to recognise those who use the power of the sciences to investigate the universe’s greatest mysteries and humanity’s place in it.
Edna Adan Ismail, 85, stated, “I feel blessed and honoured to receive this award, which will enable me to make a significant contribution to the U.S.-based Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital.” These funds will be used to support the hospital’s essential operations, such as acquiring medical equipment, employing expert educators, expanding to serve more patients, and continuing to train the next generation of healthcare professionals that East Africa so urgently needs.
Edna Adan Ismail was born to a prominent family in 1937 in Hargeisa, the capital of what was then British Somaliland. Her father was a physician who was often referred to as the country’s “father of medical care,” and her mother was the daughter of the postmaster general. Due to her father Adan Ismail’s forward-thinking values, she was tutored in secret alongside her brother until she was 15 years old, after which she attended a new school for females. A scholarship exam, which is also typically designated for males, qualified her to study in the United Kingdom, where she received a nursing and midwifery education at the Borough Polytechnic.
As a child, she enjoyed observing her father in his surgery and considered a career as a surgical nurse, but he advised her to consider midwifery, where the need is greatest. She later recalled that the most essential lesson she learned from him was compassion. One of his favourite sayings was, “If you cannot do it with your heart, your hands will never do it.” She returned to her native country in 1961 as its first nurse-midwife with professional training. She was also the first woman to operate a vehicle in her country and to be designated as a director in the Ministry of Health. As the wife of Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal, Prime Minister of a united Somalia in the late 1960s, she was the first lady of Somalia.
kuru@xlri.ac.in
