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Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan
Peacebuilder and girls' sport organiser
She used the football pitch to open conversations across divisions.
- Theme
- Community
Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan founded the Horn of Africa Development Initiative, known as HODI. Its work has used sport and community organising to address conflict and support the participation of girls.
Her approach created opportunities for young people to meet and build trust in settings shaped by insecurity and exclusion. Football became a practical starting point for discussing rights, education and the possibilities of living together.
Life and work
Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan (born c. 1978) is a Kenyan lawyer and peace ambassador. She is a recipient of the Stuttgart Peace Prize.
Adan was born to parents who were from two warring tribes in Marsabit, Northern Kenya. After her training as a lawyer, she returned to her hometown in order to promote peace between the conflicting Borana Oromo, Gabra and Rendille peoples. In 2003, she founded Horn of Africa Development Initiative, a non-governmental organization she uses to foster peace and advocate for education in Kenya.
Through the Horn of Africa Development Initiative, Adan launched a programme called "Shoot to score, not to Kill", that uses soccer to engage Kenyan youths in advocacy for peace.
Horn of Africa Development Initiative (HODI) is based on four supporting pillars: Advocacy, Education, Economic sustainability and Inter-ethnic Cohesion. Through HODI she started a programme "Breaking the Silence" which has four modules: Be yourself, be healthy, be empowered and know something about finance. Fatuma Adan was the first African woman to be elected as member of the streetfootballworld in 2015. In 2017 she was nominated as part of the Dream Team of the Global Goals World Cup.
In January 2011, Adan received the Stuttgart Peace Prize for "combining soccer and emancipation". In 2013 she was invited to talk about her work with the Horn of Africa Development Initiative at the Geneva Peace Talks on 20 September 2013. The talks were organised by the United Nations and other groups for the International Day of Peace.
Adan won a Commonwealth Points of Light Award in 2018 for her work with HODI bringing communities together and championing the rights of women and girls.
A football programme can create a meeting place that a formal political discussion cannot. Young people who might otherwise encounter one another through inherited conflict can become teammates, opponents within agreed rules, and people with a reason to meet again. HODI's use of sport should be understood in that practical sense. Football is the opening for a relationship, while education and advocacy give that relationship a wider purpose.
The organisation's programmes for girls also recognise that participation requires more than an invitation to play. Confidence, health information and economic knowledge affect whether a young person can exercise a meaningful choice. Adan's legal training and community work meet in this concern for usable rights. Her peace-building contribution is therefore connected to education and the inclusion of women, rather than being a separate activity confined to resolving disputes between community leaders.
Adan's work brings the lawyer's concern for rights into settings where people need practical opportunities to exercise them together, including girls whose participation has previously been restricted.
This section adapts selected passages from Fatuma Abdulkadir Adan by Wikipedia contributors. It is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected and edited passages, with additional editorial context; lists and reference markers omitted; punctuation and paragraph breaks adjusted. Photographs have separate licences.
