Day: May 6, 2026

ARAB-AMERICAN : Najah Bazzy–The Arab-American CNN Hero of 2019

Just recently CNN revealed the Top 10 CNN Heroes of 2019 – these are men and women that are changing the world by helping families affected by the tragedy, cleaning up the environment, protecting neglected animals, and so much more. They were nominated by CNN to receive a ten thousand dollar cash prize with the Hero of the Year to receive one hundred thousand dollars. One of the nominees is Najah Bazzy, an Arab-American who changed the lives of thousands of women and children in the Detroit Metropolitan Area.

Background

Najah learned to navigate through attitudes and beliefs that were conflicting very early in life. Born in a neighborhood that was predominantly Arab and Muslim – Dearborn, Michigan –  she refers to herself as ‘a new thing’ – a by-product of a merger between being Arab, American, and Muslim all at once. She believes these are not mutually exclusive identities, even in a post 9/11 America.

They are, which is now having the largest concentration of Arab Americans in the United States, back then was a hub of immigrants. In an interview, Najah says: “It was the people from Poland, Italy, Macedonia, Mexico, and others that we learned about their traditions and their different faiths. That’s why I love diversity so much. Neighbors sat on the front porch and they shared food while their children would go from house to house visit other children and play.  The amount of care that people had for each other was tremendous, and this is where I learned to love my neighbor.”

However, she also felt a different attitude towards Muslims after the September 11 attacks. “I’ve had death threats. I’ve had to have protection placed on me. It’s an uncomfortable feeling,” she shares. “To know that you can put out love, and other people judge that love saddens me. I want to make every breath count, so I can’t fear those who choose hate. I can only control the love I have in my heart and choose that love.”

Cause

Najah is the founder of Zaman International, a non-profit organization, which has the mission to facilitate change and advance the lives of marginalized women and children of different backgrounds in the Detroit area; she has been doing it by enabling them to meet essential needs common to all humankind. The group’s 40,000-square-foot warehouse offers for free aisles of food, rows of clothes, and furniture to those in need.

The history of the organization is truly inspirational. In 1996, when a three-month-old infant was with a terminal diagnosis, Najah Bazzy, a Transcultural Clinical Nurse Specialist, provided clinical, spiritual and cultural support to his parents who were new arrivals to the United States. She helped them face the reality that no treatment would save their child.

After visiting the family at their home, Najah was shocked by their living conditions. Instead of a refrigerator, the family used a picnic cooler to house their limited food supply and baby formula. Instead of a stove, a portable propane stove was used for cooking. The infant’s bed was a laundry basket piled high with towels, and the infant only had the hospital’s receiving blanket to keep him warm. When the infant passed away and the family was unable to pay for a funeral, Najah raised funds from the community to provide him with a proper burial. This was the beginning of Plots for Tots, Zaman’s signature program which provides dignified burial support for families that have lost a fetus or infant.

Witnessing this family’s sorrowful experience and shocking living conditions, Najah was inspired and determined to harness the community’s efforts to help struggling families. She asked community members to donate furniture, food, clothing, and household goods. The support and need for such efforts quickly increased, encouraging Zaman to formalize as an organization committed to using community support to address community needs.

Impact

In 2018, Zaman distributed 170,400 pounds of food, collected 886,950 pounds of clothing, provided over 7,750 hours of job skills and literacy instruction to more than 90 women, and gave 268 winter coats and 895 school supply-filled backpacks to local children. Meanwhile, it partnered with 444 community partners on a range of initiatives and funded overseas relief projects, bringing safe water and humanitarian relief to more than 431,900 people.

Now that Zaman’s mission has been shared with the world, Bazzy is encouraging interested readers to help by donating through the CNN Heroes program, for which a CrowdRise donation page has been set up.

“What I’m most proud of this year is that Zaman is 94 cents on the dollar (which has been audited financially), she said, and it goes to programs,” she said about the percentage of donation dollars used to help fund its operations to serve those in need.

“We really encourage people to go to the website and to donate any amount that they can, anything helps.”

source/content: wisconsinmuslimjournal.org (headline edited)

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AMERICAN / ARAB

SOMALIA : Dr Hawa Abdi Dhiblawe, human rights champion, Nobel Peace Prize nominee, ‘Somali hero,’ passes away at 73

Dr Hawa Abdi Dhiblawe, prominent human rights activist, founder and chairperson of the Dr Hawa Abdi Foundation and one of Somalia’s first female obstetricians has passed away in Mogadishu. She was 73.

She died Wednesday morning, but the circumstances surrounding her death remain unestablished at the moment.

Dr Abdi affectionately referred to as the Mother Theresa of Somalia, was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. Her work is credited for saving the lives of thousands during some of Somalia’s darkest moments. She cared for the wounded, the sick – often for free – at a hospital, she established on her family’s land in 1983. What began as a humble one-room operation would eventually care for close to 90,000 people during Somalia’s catastrophic drought in 2011.

While caring for her patients, Dr Abdi famously faced down nearly 750 militants from Hizbul Islam who laid siege to her compound in 2011. She heroically told them at the time, “I’m not leaving my hospital. If I die, I will die with my people and my dignity.’ She yelled at the young gunmen, “You are young, and you are a man, but what have you done for your society?”. The militants were met with fierce resistance from the locals who gathered around the hospital demanding to see Dr Hawa and mounting international pressure. After a week, the second-in-command came to Dr Hawa with a signed apology letter written in both Somali and English.

When the civil war broke out in 1991, Dr Abdi’s grandmother implored her to stay behind and use her skills to assist the most vulnerable. She witnessed firsthand the devastation that occurred in Somalia early after the collapse of the government.

“During those dark days of 1992, starvation set in, and I sold my family’s gold to buy enough food to sustain the vulnerable children and give the gravediggers enough strength to work. Even when we were burying 50 people per day, I was still able to provide free land, security, and medical treatment. We clung to one another, and we survived, but the fighting continued. Now, again, we see famine—not caused by drought alone, but by the conflict that continues to ravage Somalia,” she said in an interview.

Dr Hawa Abdi was born in Mogadishu in 1947 and attended local elementary, intermediate and secondary academies. 

In 1964 she travelled to the Kiev to study gynaecological medicine with the help of a Soviet scholarship. In 1971, she began her medical career as one of Somalia’s first female gynaecologists working in Mogadishu’s most prominent hospital. She quickly recognized the lack of resources for a hospital birth outside the capital. She decided in 1983 to open her clinic known as the Rural Health Development Organisation (RHDO) in the outskirts of Mogadishu. She focused primarily on the treatment of women from non-urban areas.

Dr Hawa told the New York Times that her dream to become a doctor began when she was 12 after her mother died during childbirth.

She was also an author; her moving memoir,  Keeping Hope Alive: How One Somali Woman Changed 90,000 lives was published in 2013 and was well-reviewed.

Her unwavering commitment to the downtrodden has earned her recognition worldwide. She and her daughters whom Glamour Magazine named Women of the Year in 2010 and described as ‘Saints of Somalia’ have been running the clinic and Dr Hawa Abdi Foundation. She was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2012. In that same year, she was honoured with the BET’s Social Humanitarian Award, Women of Impact Award from the WITW Foundation, and the John Jay Medal for Justice. In 2014, she received the Medal from Want award from the Roosevelt Foundation. She was awarded the 2013 Vital Voices’ Women of the Year Award. In 2015, she was the recipient of the Pilosio Building Peace Award. Most recently, she was honoured by Harvard University with an honorary Doctors of Law degree in May 2017.

source/content: hiraan.com (headline edited)

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A Family Affair: From left: Dr. Amina Mohamed, Dr. Hawa Abdi and Dr. Deqo Mohamed, photographed during a business trip to Geneva, Switzerland, on September 18, 2010. Hair and makeup: Mitzi for Visage Management

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SOMALIA