From TEDxRC² comes this moving story of midwife Edna Adan Ismail. We share in honor of the International Day of the Midwife, May 5, 2012.

Edna Adan Ismail is a nurse, midwife, UN diplomat, French Legion of Honour recipient and former foreign minister of Somaliland — an unrecognised, self-declared state that has been going it alone for the past 20 years. The tireless 74-year-old has poured everything she has, including her pension, into providing much-needed health care to a population with one of the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in the world — a situation that’s been exacerbated by Somalia’s long civil war, which led to the death or departure of nearly all of the country’s health care workers. In her talk at TEDxRC², Edna shared her vision for saving many more lives across the Horn of Africa, proving that “if it can happen in Somaliland, it can happen anywhere.”

Learn more about Edna Adan Ismail’s hospital

Read Nicholas Kristof’s Mother’s Day 2011 columnm, featuring Edna >>