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Dekha Ibrahim Abdi was honored in late 2007 as one of the recipients of the Right Livelihood Award, presented annually by the Right Livelihood Award Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. The Right Livelihood Award, often known as the "Alternative Nobel Prize," was established in 1980 to honour and support those "offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today."
Ms. Abdi, one of the thirteen members of CI's Advisory Board, was honored for her peace and conflict resolution work bridging cultural and religious differences. Ms. Abdi grew up in rural Kenya, in an ethnically mixed society. Her work in Kenya and elsewhere has been for local solutions to peace and development, particularly through coexistence and positive relations between groups. As she has said, "The participation in a peace process is not about the mathematics of numbers and percentages in relation to who is in majority or minority. It is about plurality, diversity, participation and ownership of all affected by the conflict ..."
Ms Abdi has pledged to use her approximately $77,000 in prize money from the award to establish a "Peace University" in Wajir, Kenya, the former conflict area in which she was born.
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