Fatima Jibrell
Sun Fire Cooking – Somalia
Fatima Jibrell is a Somali-American environmental activist. She was the co-founder and executive director of Adeso, co-founder of Sun Fire Cooking, and was instrumental in the creation of the Women’s Coalition for Peace.
Jibrell was born Somaliland to a nomadic family. Her father was a merchant marine who settled in New York City. As a child in Somalia, she attended a British boarding school until the age of 16, when she left the country to join her father in the United States.
Somalia, a desert country the size of Texas, has only 2 percent arable land. With the ever-present threat of devastating droughts, protecting the environment is a must.
Spurred on by the civil war in Somalia that began in 1991, Jibrell along with her husband and family friends co-founded the Horn of Africa Relief and Development Organization, colloquially referred to as Horn Relief, a non-governmental organization (NGO) for which she served as the executive director. While Jibrell retired as executive director in 2006, she maintains a role on the organization’s board of directors and in its Somalia programs. Adeso describes its mission as grassroots level work aimed at uplifting local communities.
“Women cannot remain detached [from politics]. We can be pillars of peace in Somalia.“
Jibrell was instrumental in the creation of the Women’s Coalition for Peace to encourage more participation by women in politics and social issues. She also co-founded Sun Fire Cooking, which aims to introduce solar cookers to Somalia so as to reduce the reliance on charcoal as a fuel.
“We will go slowly [but] we will get there someday. By promoting the connections between peace, women’s empowerment, and resource protection, we have been able to provide communities with needed skills and sustainable economic activities.”
Jibrell mounted this successful campaign to salvage old-growth forests of acacia trees in the northeastern part of Somalia. These trees, which can grow up to 500 years old, were being cut down to make charcoal since this so-called “black gold” is highly in demand in the Arabian Peninsula, where the region’s Bedouin tribes believe the acacia to be sacred. However, while being a relatively inexpensive fuel that meets a user’s needs, the production of charcoal often leads to deforestation and desertification. As a way of addressing this problem, Jibrell and Horn Relief trained a group of adolescents to educate the public on the permanent damage that producing charcoal can create. In 1999, Horn Relief coordinated a peace march in the northeastern Puntland region of Somalia to put an end to the so-called “charcoal wars.”
In 2008, Jibrell wrote and co-produced a short film entitled Charcoal Traffic, which employs a fictional storyline to educate the public about the charcoal crisis. The film was directed by the filmmaker Nathan Collett.
As a result of Jibrell’s lobbying and education efforts, the Puntland government in 2000 prohibited the exportation of charcoal. The government has also since enforced the ban, which has reportedly led to an 80% drop in exports of the product.
In 2011, Jibrell along with retired Australian diplomat James Lindsay also published Peace and Milk: Scenes of Northern Somalia, a photography book on Somalia’s nomadic countryside and life. The work has received international accolades from environmental organizations, including the Goldman Environmental Foundation and Résistants pour la Terre.
“It is important to know that we are all human world citizens and belong to this fragile, limited space. If we go too far, we can’t repair it.”
Website 1) Sun Fire Cooking
Website 2) Adeso
Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/FatimaJibrell
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Adesoafrica
Video 1) 2002 Goldman Prize winner
Video 2) Champion of the Earth
