Records of Somalia – Page 3 – Arabian Records (1st post : Eid Al Fitr – 01st Shawwal 1439 (AH) / 15th June 2018 ) / (BETA testing – Research

Somalia Elects Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as New President : May 2022

Hassan Sheikh Mohamud elected president for the second time, defeating incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed in a final round.

Somali legislators have elected former leader Hassan Sheikh Mohamud as the country’s next president, following a long-overdue election on Sunday in the troubled Horn of Africa nation.

Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who served as Somalia’s president between 2012 and 2017, won the contest in the capital, Mogadishu, amid a security lockdown imposed by authorities to prevent deadly rebel attacks.

After a marathon poll, involving 36 candidates, that was broadcast live on state TV, parliamentary officials counted more than 165 votes in favour of Mohamud, more than the number required to defeat incumbent President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed.

Supporters of Somalia’s new leader defied the curfew to pour onto the streets of Mogadishu, cheering and firing guns as it became clear that Mohamud had won the vote.

Many hope the election will draw a line under a political crisis that has lasted well over a year, after Mohamed’s term ended in February 2021 without an election.

Mohamed, who is also known as Farmaajo, conceded defeat, and Mohamud was immediately sworn in.

The new president struck a conciliatory tone in his acceptance speech from the airport compound in Mogadishu, which was patrolled by African Union (AU) peacekeepers.

“It is indeed commendable that the president is here standing by my side,” Mohamud said, referring to the former leader, who had sat with him as ballots were counted.

“We have to move ahead, we do not need grudges. No avenging,” he said.

War, drought

The 66-year-old Mohamud is the leader of the Union for Peace and Development party, which commands a majority of seats in both legislative chambers.

A member of the Hawiye clan, one of Somalia’s largest, Mohamud is regarded by some as a statesman with a conciliatory approach. He is also well-known for his work as a civic leader and education promoter, including for his role as one of the founders of Mogadishu’s SIMAD University.

source/content: aljazeera.com (edited)

______________

____________

SOMALIA

Somali American Fartun Osman Awarded ‘2022 Legacy Award’ by NCAA, USA

Fartun Osman, the CEO and head coach of Girls Rock, an all-girls club founded in 2004 that promotes sport for Somali and Muslim girls, will be honoured by the NCAA with the 2022 Legacy Award for her local activism in the Minneapolis area.

The award ceremony is part of the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Final Four festivities.

Osman is one of eight community leaders in the US to be recognized for her contributions to female athletics. She will be awarded a plaque during the semifinal games at the Women’s Final Four in Minneapolis on April 1.

Born in Somalia, Fartun Osman was a rare female basketball player in her native country. She was always active in sports and said that her first love was soccer but pivoted to basketball because of the lack of opportunities for women in the sport.

Osman traveled to other countries as part of the women’s Somali national basketball team as a teenager.

Following the breakout of the civil war in the early 1990s, Fartun emigrated to the US. She quickly discovered similar barriers to entry for Somali and Muslim girls into sports and made it her mission to make sports more equitable for girls who look like her.

She fought hard for the rights of her all-Muslim girl soccer teams to play with their hijabs, and her Girls Rock initiative has coached and mentored over 1,000 girls.

“The 2022 NCAA Legacy honorees are an impressive slate of community leaders and citizens who, through their daily actions, have shown their care and concern for their neighbors,” said Felicia Martin, NCAA senior vice president of inclusion, education and community engagement.

source/content: hiiraan.com (edited)

___________

_______________________

AMERICAN / SOMALI

Bashir Abdi: From Somalian Refugee to Belgian Olympic Bronze Medallist

Bashir Abdi’s bronze medal in the marathon at the Olympic Games in Tokyo is a victory that will go down in the history books. He came to Belgium as a refugee from Somalia as a 13-year-old boy. Speaking after taking bronze in Tokyo, Bashir Adil told VRT Sport that “I always wanted to thank my new country by winning a medal”.

The scenes of Bashir Abdi being encouraged on by his best friend and training buddy, the Dutch athlete Abdi Nageeye, as they both reached the finishing line will be one of the enduring memories of this summer’s Tokyo Olympics. Bashir Abdi’s bronze medal was the first medal for Belgium in the Olympic marathon event since Karel Lismont’s medal 45 years ago.

A great sporting achievement for a man that is delighted to be able to give something back to a country that he came to as a teenage refugee and that he is proud to call home. “I always want to thank my new country by giving it a medal. At the European Championships I was successful and won silver and now I am on the podium at the Olympic Games. Hopefully more will follow in the future”.

But what about the past? Who is Bashir Abdi and how did he get to where he is? A couple of months ago Bashir Abdi was a guest in our nightly topical discussion programme ‘De Afspraak’. Then he said “I was 13 years old in 2002 when I arrived in Ghent (East Flanders) with my father, sister and brother. People know me from sport, my achievements as a runner, but few people know about my journey from Somalia to Belgium”. In an effort to change this Bashir’s Dutch teacher a book about his life.

“It was all new I didn’t speak the language; it was a completely different culture, and the weather was cold. First, I was in a football club because in Somalia the only sport on TV or in the paper is football. I didn’t even know that other sports existed. Then I come into contact with athletic and that was something that greatly appealed to me. Running on my own and forgetting about everything that I had gone through gave me so much fulfilment. Society has helped me”.

A key figure in Abdi story is his mother “It is thanks to her that I came to Belgium. She has recognition as a political refugee, and she initiated a family reunification procedure. It took years before I was reunited with her”.

Bashir Abdi’s mother died of cancer in 2011. In the interview he told of what her last words to him were “She call us together on the final day of her life and said, ‘this country has meant so much to all of you, be good people’. She was the one that always supported me being an athlete while the rest of the family felt that it was a waste of time”.

When he was asked by our colleague Phara de Aguirre if he would be running for his Mum on 8 August, Bashir Abdi said “Absolutley, I hope that she will be looking down watch my performance from up there”.

source/content : vrt.be / flandersnews.be

___________

_____________________

BELGIAN / SOMALI

Yusuf Qaafow, Somali-Australian Pro Basketball Player

Yusuf Qaafow (born June 19, 1987) is a Somali professional basketball player.

At a professional level, he played for the Melbourne Tigers and then the Brisbane Spartans from 2009 until 2017, and has since been a basketball coach running his own academy called the Hard Knockz Academy.

Abdi was born in Somalia and moved to Australia where he began playing basketball at the age of 12.

He opted to represent his country of birth, Somalia national basketball team where he was born in 1987.

As a captain of the Somalia national football team throughout the 2010s, he has served as the nations longest served team captain thus far.

Qaafow has claimed that he aims to take Somalia back to its team high of 1981 when it won the bronze medal at FIBA Africa, or its stable period in 1992 when Somalia last took part at FIBA Africa before the imminent absent spell for many years thereafter.

source/content: en.wikipedia.org

___________

_________________________

AUSTRALIAN / SOMALI

Hamse Warfa, the Highest-Ranking Somali Appointee in the Biden-Harris Administration, Washington

Hamse Warfa.

Hamse Warfa presently serving as Deputy Commissioner for Workforce Development, in the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (MEED) is leaving for a position in the Biden administration.

As a senior advisor in the U.S. State Department, Hamse will play a role in promoting democracy abroad and addressing refugee resettlement.

Hamse first came to the U.S. from Somalia when he was a teenager in 1994. He studied political science and organizational management, and built a career in both the public and private sector.

In 2014, he published his autobiography, America Here I Come: A Somali Refugee’s Quest for Hope.

As a Bush Fellow in 2016, Hamse founded BanQu, a blockchain service to provide access to credit and bank services for refugees. He also founded a consulting group to address poverty and economic opportunities for marginalized people.

__________

__________________________

AMERICAN / SOMALIA

‘The Gravedigger’s Wife’: A Somali Love Story Wins Africa’s Top Film Prize : October 24th, 2021

Khadar Ayderus Ahamed. Writer. Film Director.

Movie by Finnish-Somali writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed won the Stallion of Yennenga grand prize at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival of Ouagadougou.

A little more than one month after it won the Amplify Voices Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, The Gravedigger’s Wife has scooped Africa’s top film prize.

The drama, by Finnish-Somali writer-director Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, won the prestigious Stallion of Yennenga Grand Prize for Best Film at the Pan African Film Festival in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, on Sunday.

Filmed in Somali in Djibouti, the tenderly moving story of love and devotion follows Guled (Omar Abdi), a man who makes a precarious living from loss.

The film took home the 20 million franc ($35,714) CFA prize money and the golden stallion statue, beating 16 other African films to the top prize. The films in competition were made by directors from 15 different African countries.

It was also Somalia’s first official entry for the Best International Feature Film category at the 2021 Academy Awards, and premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in July.

source/content: thenationalnews.com

___________

Khadar Ayderus Ahmed, left, Yasmin Warsame, centre, and Omar Abdi attend ‘The Gravedigger’s Wife’ photocall during the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival. / AFP / thenationalnews.com

_______________________

FINLAND / SOMALIA

Rawdah Mohamed is the First Hijab-Wearing Editor of Color at a Western Fashion Magazine ‘Vogue Scandinavia’

Rawdah Mohamed. Somali Origin – Norwegian. Social media influencer, model, blogger, activist, healthcare professional.

Mohamed landed the role as Vogue Scandinavia’s Norway fashion editor earlier this year.

The magazine launched last week with Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg on the front cover.

At the beginning of her modeling career, Mohamed juggled the job with working with autistic people and people with different mental disabilities.

She continues to volunteer in mental health care to this day and has been working with patients at overstretched hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

source/content: arabnews.com

_________

Rawdah Mohamed is the first hijab-wearing editor of color at a western fashion magazine. (Ole Martin Halvorsen) / arabnews.com

_______________________

NORWAY / SOMALIA

Ramla Ali – First British Female Muslim Boxing Champion

Ramla Ali (aka) Ramla Said Ahmed Ali

Somali-British. English Professional Boxer, Model, Author and Racial Equality Activist.

First/s :

First Muslim Woman Boxer to win English National Titles in 2016
Somalia’s First ever Boxing Representative for Tokyo 2020 Olympics
First Female Somali Boxer in history to compete professionally
First male or female to win the African Boxing Title and International Gold medals whilst representing Somalia
First Boxer in history to have represented Somalia in Women’s World Championships, New Delhi, India

Winner : a few listed below :

As an amateur – Won Novice National Championship, England (2015)
England Boxing Elite Championship (2016)
African Zone Featherweight Title (2019)
etc..

Social Activist:

Launched a club ‘ The Sister’s Club’, UK (2018)

Model:

Front covers of British Vogue, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Guardian Observer, Wonderland, ELLE, The Square Mile, The Week, Swiss Style, Puss Puss Magazine etc..

Brand Ambassador:

Pantene nominated her as its newest Ambassador and Face of their Hair Care Brand (2019)

Book:

‘Not Without A Fight’

__________

___________________________________________

UNITED KINGDOM / SOMALIAN-BRITISH