http://www.euronews.com/ “I came from the Ethiopian border, we used to raise animals, mainly goats. Because of the drought, I lost all my animals. And there was also fighting between clans. So we decided to leave that region, and find some security. So we came here.”
 
So says Sahra who three months ago arrived at Halabokhad camp near the town of Galkayo, in Puntland, north-east Somalia.
 
Many displaced persons have found shelter here from violence elsewhere in the country, and the creeping drought that has pushed rural communities towards starvation. 
 
To feed her family Sahra can only count on the kindness of her fellow refugees. She, like everyone else here, turns to a woman everyone knows, a woman who can change their destinies. 
 
The remarkable Hawa Aden Mohamed has restored hope for thousands of people. 
 
People like Asha Ali Samtar, who is bringing up her nine children alone, along with five nephews and nieces. A $300 (234 euros) loan has enabled her to open a small store in the camp, supported by Hawa Aden Mohamed’s NGO, the GECPD, or Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development. 
 
“My business is doing well compared to previous times when I had no one to help me. Before I used to beg people to help me with 2,000 shillings to buy a glass of water. Now thank God I can buy my vegetables and food and everything I need,” Asha told euronews.
 
The organisation has also taught her to read and write, and enabled her to send several of her children to school. 
 
Providing women with access to education and development has always been what everyone here calls ‘Mama’ Hawa’s daily combat. It has won her the UN’s Nansen Refugee Award. 
 
“The whole market is free for them. And in the afternoon, it is a must, it is a must, they have to go to the school, for the literacy classes. That was a condition we made. How can you be empowered if you’re not educated? If you cannot really understand what the issue is. If you are illiterate, you have a mind, you can talk, you can see what is wrong, you can see what is right, and all that. But not really at the level of where you can argue as an equal. Where you can demand your rights,” insists Hawa.
 
Her organisation works in the 20 refugee camps in the region. Euronews could only visit Halabokhad, the safest, and most developed.
 
Puntland is a normally calm, semi-autonomous region despite being home to several armed militias, and pirate bases. The week euronews visited it was on high alert.
 
Clashes between pirates and the army left several dead during our stay. A rash of kidnappings meant we could not venture far afield, and we were always escorted. 
 
We were only authorised to spend a short time at the organisation’s headquarters, the education hub in Galkayo town centre.
 
The GECPD was founded in 1999, when Hawa Aden Mohamed, who had fled to Kenya, decided to return home to help Somalia’s women.  
 
It was a longstanding commitment. Responsible for the women’s portfolio at the Education Ministry in the 1980s, Hawa set up several NGOs over the next few years to promote women’s economic development and education. The civil war led to her exile in Canada. 
 
She returned to southern Somalia in 1995, only to again be forced to flee from the savage clan wars. 
 
When Hawa arrived in Galkayo, her stand on female emancipation clashed with traditions. 
 
“I was the witch. I brought bad omens to start a school. I had something different, ideas which were considered not good for our religion, not good for our culture. So you know it was very difficult. The girls also when they leave the school, outside they were insulted,” she remembers.
 
Determination kept her going. In 10 years Hawa and her team managed to open 12 primary and secondary  schools for girls, a boy’s school, a leisure centre, hostels, and the town’s only library. 
 
As a result 40 percent of the girls in the region go to school, a national record in a country where less than a quarter of women have access to education. 
 
The centre also offers vocational education to women and girls in the refugee camps.
 
One workshop has changed the lives of hundreds of them. The women make reusable sanitary towels and other female hygiene products. 
 

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