Dekha Ibrahim Abdi
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Your support makes all the difference.Dekha Ibrahim Abdi, who died on 14 July aged 47 following a car crash in Nairobi, was a peace activist who worked as a consultant to governments and civil society organisations.
She was a trustee of the Coalition for Peace in Africa and of Nomadic, a pastoralist organisation based in Wajir.
In 2007 she was honoured with the Right Livelihood Award, which is often referred to as the "Alternative Nobel Prize". The jury commended her "for showing in diverse ethnic and cultural situations how religious and other differences can be reconciled, even after violent conflict, and knitted together through a cooperative process that leads to peace and development".
Abdi (right, EPA) was a founding member of the Wajir Peace and Development Committee, the Coalition for Peace in Africa, and Action (Action for Conflict Transformation). She worked as a consultant trainer on peace-building and pastoralists' development in Cambodia, Jordan, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Africa, Netherlands, Israel, Palestine, Zimbabwe, the UK, Uganda and Kenya.
Ole von Uexkull, Executive Director of the Right Livelihood Foundation, said, "She had acquired her deep insights into conflict dynamics not as an academic but through her grassroots activism as a young woman in Northern Kenya who simply could not accept the violence between the different ethnic communities. She later used her own experience to help and train others."
Abdi's husband died with her in the crash. They leave behind four children.
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