Meet Hafsa, a community health worker bringing care to Somalia's most remote villages
Published for World Humanitarian Day, 19 August 2026
Some mornings, Hafsa's* first patient is a two-hour drive away.
Hafsa is 26, and a community health worker in central Somalia. Most days she travels one to two hours by car to reach rural communities where there is no pharmacy, no clinic, and often no other health worker for miles. When she arrives, families are already waiting.
Her first task is to check the youngest children. Hafsa screens children under five for the illnesses that can turn deadly without treatment: malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition. "We serve and treat children under five years of age," she says. "Our primary role in the community is to treat common childhood illnesses."
For a child diagnosed with malnutrition, Hafsa provides therapeutic food on the spot, so a family is spared a long and costly journey for help.
When a child is too ill to be treated in the community, she arranges an ambulance to the nearest stabilisation centre.
Much of her work happens before a child ever falls ill. Hafsa sits with mothers to explain the early signs of malnutrition, the value of breastfeeding, and how to feed infants and young children well. Prevention, she knows, is what keeps children out of hospital.
The only care within reach
Aisha*, 25, is a mother of four who depends on this service. On the day Hafsa visited, she screened all four of Aisha's children. Each one was healthy.
With no pharmacy nearby, the community health team is the only regular care Aisha can reach.
"There are no pharmacies nearby, but certain medications are available through the health services," she says. "We rely on this team because it is the closest centre and provides what our children need."
Even when her family moved in search of water and pasture, Aisha says the care followed them. "Even during periods when we were away from the area, we were able to access medications whenever needed."
Before heading out to rural communities, Hafsa* collects medicine from the Save the Children warehouse at Adado (aka Cadaado) Hospital. Hafsa* is an integrated community case management worker who travels for one to two hours to reach rural communities. She visits families, raises awareness, screens children for malnutrition and other illnesses, and refers children to the Stabilisation Centre when further treatment is needed. Mustafa Saeed / Save the Children
One health worker, a wider system
Hafsa is one health worker within a much larger effort. She works through the Community Health and Social Accountability Programme (CHASP), which Save the Children runs with Somalia's Ministry of Health, with support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Across Jubbaland, Galmudug and Puntland, the programme supports 77 health facilities and 35 community case management sites, serving a population of more than 644,000 people. Its aim is not only to treat children today, but to strengthen Somalia's own health system so that care lasts. As the programme enters its third phase, running from 2024 to 2027, the focus is on government ownership and a steady handover of services to local authorities.
An ask for the community, not herself
Hafsa has done this work for close to six years. She talks about it plainly, and with ambition for the families she serves. Her one request is not for herself, but for a maternal and child health centre closer to the community she reaches. "That is the help we are requesting," she says.
World Humanitarian Day, marked every year on 19 August, honours the people who bring aid to others, often in the places that are hardest to reach. Under the 2026 campaign, #ActForHumanity, it is a reminder that behind every figure in a report is a person who chose to serve. In Somalia, many of them are like Hafsa: local, trusted, and willing to travel two hours so that a child does not have to travel at all.
* Names marked with an asterisk have been changed to protect identities.
Story collected in Adado, Somalia, June 2026, through the CHASP programme, funded by Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in partnership with the Ministry of Health.
