Fartuun Adan

Fartuun Abdisalaan Adan (, ) is a Somali social activist. She is the executive director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre, a Mogadishu based organization that works on peace building and protecting and empowering marginalized groups. She is also the co-founder of Sister Somalia, which is Somali's first rape crisis and support program for survivors of gender-based violence.

Adan’s work has received multiple international honors, including the International Women of Courage Award from the United States Department of State in 2013, a human rights award from the German government in 2014, the Gleitsman International Activist Award from Harvard Kennedy School in 2015, the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity in 2020, and the Right Livelihood Award in 2022.

Personal life Fartuun Adan grew up in Somalia. She was married to Elman Ali Ahmed, a local entrepreneur and peace activist. Her husband was widely known in Mogadishu as the "Somali father of peace." He popularized the slogan “Drop the gun, pick up the pen” and created programs that help war-affected youth, including former child soldiers and orphans, move towards schooling and positive livelihoods. The couple had four daughters together.

On November 20, 2019, local authorities confirmed her daughter Almaas Elman, who had also returned to Somalia as an aid worker, had been shot and killed in a car, near the Mogadishu airport.

Career Fartuun Adan is the executive director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre, a Mogadishu-based NGO established in honour of her late husband. She serves as the organization's Executive Director, while their daughter Ilwad works alongside her in a senior leadership role. According to the organization's own website, Elman Peace works across multiple pillars, including peace and reconciliation, human rights and protection, gender equality, climate and security, education, and job creation for young people.

The Right Livelihood Award foundation describes Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre as carrying forward the slogan “Drop the gun, pick up the pen” philosophy through community-based disarmament, rehabilitation, and reintegration of former combatants, including child soldiers. Under Adan’s leadership, Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre has grown from a local center in Mogadishu to an entire network of people working in several regions of Somalia and even partners they advise in other African countries. Sister Somalia grew into a network of safe houses and crisis centers offering medical care, psychosocial support, emergency shelter, legal accompaniment and livelihood training to survivors of rape and other forms of gender-based violence.

Beyond Somalia, Elman Peace has engaged with regional peace and youth networks. The Right Livelihood Award notes that under Adan and Ilwad Elman’s leadership, the organization has nurtured a “Peace by Africa” network of grassroots groups in Lake Chad and Great Lakes regions, sharing experience on disarmament, youth reintegration, and gender justice.

Awards

In 2013, Fartuun Adan was presented an International Women of Courage Award from the United States Department of State "for her work as a champion of human rights and the elimination of sexual and gender-based violence in Somalia.

In November 2015, the Center for Public Leadership at Harvard Kennedy School announced that Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman would receive the Gleitsman International Activist Award for their leadership of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre and Sister Somalia. In 2020, the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative named them Aurora Prize Laureates, citing their work with survivors of war and sexual based violence and their commitment to grassroots peace building in Somalia. The prize was a $1 million USD award that would be channelled through Elman Peace into projects such as shelters for women and children, education and livelihoods programs, and long-term psychosocial support, with Aurora estimating that their initiatives had already helped tens of thousands of people.

In 2022, Fartuun Adan and Ilwad Elman received the Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Prize," "for promoting peace, demilitarization and human rights in Somalia in the face of terrorism and gender-based violence".