A generous heart, soft spoken, hardworking and a life full of service with compassion are what describes Hussein Hassan a Senior Health Programme Officer working with the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Somalia. At 27 Hussein has always placed the lives of vulnerable populations including migrants living within the Internally Displaced Settlements (IDPs) in Garowe, Puntland a reason to smile and hope for a brighter future ahead.
 
Having served as a humanitarian aid worker for almost 9 years in a post-conflict country  with unstable levels of insecurity, Hussein’s thirst and vision of ensuring vulnerable populations living within the settlements receive a helping hand in terms of availability of affordable or free health care, nutrition and non-food relief items (NFIs) and ensuring that they live in a healthy and “safer” condition has never been deterred. As a public health specialist, he established  the first ever People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV) networks both in Puntland and South Central Somalia which brought together 500  PLHIV  together to advocate for their rights and ensure their greater and meaningful involvement  in programme planning, setting up priorities and policy development to ensure that they receive treatment, care and support.  Hussein also established five permanent health facilities which provide Primary health Care services to the Tsunami affected communities in the coastal villages of Eyl Districts. In addition to the above, in February 2013, Hussein received a Resolution Fellowship Award, an international recognition award from the United Nations (UN) general assembly given to youth with exceptional leadership and poised to change the world.
 
As a humanitarian worker, Hussein has encountered a lot of challenges while trying to save the lives of the populations he serves who  die unnecessarily due to preventable diseases and natural calamities . With the high level of insecurity such as threats on his life as well as terrorist attacks such as the recent attack at the United Nations Common Compound (UNCC) that occurred on 19 June in Mogadishu in which Hussein was in, are some of the major challenges which he has encountered and caused him trauma but does not stop him continuing to serve the populations that are most in need of humanitarian aid and support.

Watch his story here.