In July of this year, Africa lost one of its premier peacebuilders in a tragic car accident in Kenya. While Dekha Ibrahim Abdi’s passing is a loss to peace efforts in Africa and around the globe, it’s also a loss to me. I lost a friend and mentor.

Where do I begin to write about how Dekha has shaped my peacebuilding and my life? So many good memories, so much learning, and so many things yet unlearned.

Others will write of her brilliant mind, her analytical skills, her ability to see connections, her incredible teaching and facilitation skills. I’ve learned much from her in all of these areas and will miss them. And yet during these last weeks as I’ve remembered Dekha and the very deep lessons I’ve learned from her, it’s her personal qualities that stand out. I want to share a few stories that illustrate this.

First, Dekha had a seeming inability to stereotype people; she was able to see beyond the title, the uniform, and the ethnicity, to the heart and soul of the person in front of her. The last time that Dekha was at EMU, just a few weeks before her death, we went shopping for gifts for her children and friends. We wandered into a shoe store, and staggered out three hours later with thirteen pairs of shoes for her daughters and others. During that time in the shoe store, I again watched in amazement as she made friends with one of the salespeople – a young, tattooed woman who, by the end of that encounter, had an entirely new understanding of Islam and women who choose to wear veils. By sharing her humanity, humor, and joy in buying those shoes, she connected with the saleswoman in ways that went far beyond that of customer.

Second, not only have I learned from Dekha the importance of not stereotyping myself, but of helping others break the prejudices that they have. Dekha’s first visit to EMU in 1998 was during the time that money was being collected to build a mosque in Harrisonburg. During that time a local Presbyterian Church had set aside their fellowship room on Fridays for the local Muslim community to have a place for prayers. Dekha was very pleased to be able to donate money for the mosque, and through the years talked often about how important it was for her to share the story of a church that shared their space with a Muslim congregation.

And Dekha taught me the importance of living by faith and values. Her rock-solid grounding in Islam became more and more evident during the years that I knew her and her work. Dekha’s life, her being, flowed out of that. We had many conversations through the years about Islam, Christianity, and faith. Knowing this deeply religious Muslim woman has moved me to a deeper commitment to my own Christian faith.

Finally, Dekha taught me about enjoying life. Her smile, her enthusiasm at each new experience, her joking and chuckle, even in the midst of difficult times, will stay with me forever. She loved life, she loved her children, her family, her friends, and her colleagues, and she welcomed everyone and every experience into her wide, opening acceptance.

Dekha once told me a story about when she was in Nairobi, in a shop purchasing butter, and two men behind her started speaking in English about “why this Somali woman was taking so long just making a simple purchase – that’s how all those Somalis are.” Dekha turned around and explained to them that actually she was contemplating why butter imported from New Zealand was cheaper than local butter, and trying to decide whether she should place more importance on her family’s budget by buying the butter from New Zealand, or whether she should support the national economy by buying the more expensive local butter. She laughed with pleasure as she remembered the way the men looked at her, and kept chuckling, still hoping she had changed the way the two men viewed “those rural women.”

The last time I was with Dekha, just a few weeks before her death, she spoke over and over again about her family, about how happy she was with her children and about how much her husband, her mother, her brother and others meant to her. Her smile as she talked about them engaged not just her entire face, but her whole being. Her life was very full, and she was content.

I will miss you, Dekha:  my colleague, my friend, my sister.   And the lessons that you have taught me will remain with me, in my work and in my life.

See also:  (EMU News)

[ (MA ’99) is director of the Practice and Training Institute at ��ݮ����’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Jan’s expertise in project planning, development and management, community-based peacebuilding processes – particularly in Africa – has helped of the field of peacebuilding.]

Muslim Somali Woman Leads Way

Born in 1964, Dekha Ibrahim Abdi did not know peace until in the ’90s.

Before then, violence was the order of the day. Deaths followed incidents between the Ogaden and Degodia communities [in the border area of Somalia and Kenya].

“The night before I sat for my high school examinations, state security agents burnt the villages and everyone had to move to a nearby school,” she says.

“In those days, going to the market was choosing between life and death. If you slept through the night and woke up the next day, you thanked God, and prayed that your life would be spared to see another day. Those were frightening times.”

“When I became a mother, I stopped asking when the conflict would stop. I knew somebody had to stop it,” she says.

With other women, she founded Wajir Peace Group in 1992.

For her peace work, she is one of the six recipients of this year’s prestigious Right Livelihood Award.

The foundation recognizes those “working on practical and exemplary solutions to the most urgent challenges facing the world today.”

She becomes the second Kenyan recipient of the Right Livelihood Award after Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Wangari Maathai who was honoured in 1984 for her grassroots environmental work in the Greenbelt Movement.

The 43-year-old mother of four says she will use the prize money, about Sh5 million [about $80,000 in U.S. dollars], as an endowment fund to build a university in Wajir.

Dekha’s religious and spiritual identity as a Muslim forms a strong foundation for her peace work.

She is credited for knitting together a cooperative process in diverse ethnic and cultural situations to overcome religious and other differences – leading to peace and development.

“I bring to the negotiating table the skills and processes I have learned from my experiences as a peacemaker, as well as my heritage as a Somali, Muslim woman,” she says.

In the beginning the Wajir Peace Corps was not well received. “The government then was wary of any public gatherings.”

Besides the government, community elders were not willing to take them seriously on account of their age and gender.

“In addition, some people in the community believed in revenge. To the elders, talking reconciliation with another clan was outrageous,” she says.

However, Dekha and her colleagues sought support from older Somali women.

“Our culture respects older women and their views are appreciated and considered important by the male elders,” she adds.

In 1998, ��ݮ���� offered her a six-week training on writing.

This gave her chance to not only talk about her experiences as a mediator, but also write about them.

“When I narrated my experiences, some people thought I was making up the stories. They could not believe it.”

Her daily interactions with other participants ignited a new passion in her.

Dekha was convinced that writing about her experiences would offer insights into conflicts.

“I made contributions in a book, Working with Conflict, Skills and Strategies for Peace, by Zed Books,” she says.

Dekha has worked as a consultant trainer on peacebuilding and pastoralist development with many local and international agencies in Cambodia, Somalia, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Germany, Ethiopia, South Africa, Netherlands, Zimbabwe, the United Kingdom, Uganda, Ghana and Kenya.

[This piece is adapted from a December 2, 2007, article in The Standard of Kenya. Note: Dekha Ibrahim Abdi’s life was tragically cut short in an automobile accident in the summer of 2011, less than a month after vising EMU again for a “Women, War and Peace” forum. Read the tribute from her friend, Jan Jenner: .]