Our Mission

Somaliland’s health care system was utterly destroyed by the civil war leaving the country with, among other problems, the highest rate of maternal and infant mortality in the world. It is a goal of the Hospital not only to train fully-qualified health care professionals but also to train and dispatch 1,000 community midwives throughout the country. Another very important goal is to fight the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is endemic throughout this region.  Many women had extreme difficulty giving birth because of FGM, and so the hospital educates the society to turn away from this traditional practice. Above all, “knowledge is the biggest gift.” Edna’s primary mission is to educate.

In recognition of these achievements, among others, the hospital founder Edna Adan Ismail has been awarded the French Legion of Honor, Honorary Degrees from Clark University and the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. and the London South Bank University in the UK, and most recently the Templeton Prize “in recognition of her extraordinary efforts to harness the power of the sciences to affirm the dignity of women and help them to flourish physically and spiritually”.