Asha's Story

"The road to peace is very long, very slippery and very unsafe. It requires courage, commitment, persistence and perseverance. Those waging war benefit out of the blood of the people so to water down their business you are playing with fire. You can not take that for granted. That is where courage comes in, to stick to your convinctions.

In 2002 Starlin Abdi Arush who was a renowned Somali woman peace and human rights activist was killed. She was assassinated. And then in 2005 another renowned Somalia peace and human rights activist was killed in Mogadishu. He was murdered. When I was grieving for his death my then 12 year old son sat beside me and he said, and I quote ‘Mum, Aunti Starlin died in 2002 and now Uncle Yahya was killed and he was such a close friend of yours doing the same thing as you are doing, mum my worry is who will be the third?’

[But] I can not give up. I would rather die in doing what I believe is the right thing to do."

Apply it »

Resolving conflict takes bags of courage. It means being emotionally vulnerable, doing something you might be scared of. Practice risking rejection in small things - smile at someone. If they don’t smile back you’ll get over it. Somewhere deep within your safe; try to stay in touch with that feeling.

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