TEDxRC2_EdnaAdanIsmail_If_we_can_train_midwives_in_Somaliland_everyone_can.mp4 December 13, 2011

Favorite:

Edna Adan Ismail is a nurse, midwife, UN diplomat, French Legion of Honour recipient and former foreign minister of Somaliland -- an unrecognized, self-declared state that has been going it alone for the past 20 years. She was also a founding member of the Somali Red Crescent back in 1963.    The tireless 74-year-old has poured everything she has, including her pension, into providing much-needed health care to a population with one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world -- a situation that's been exasperated by Somalia's long civil war, which led to the death or departure of nearly all of the country's health care workers.

During her TEDxRC² talk, Adan Ismail demonstrates how hospitals like hers (which she dared to build on the site of an old killing ground and graveyard) are on the pioneering edge of training local medical professionals to meet local health challenges.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)