Former Kenyan Refugee Abdullahi Mire is the UNHCR Nansen Refugee Awards 2023 winner.
Mire won the global award for championing the right to education while providing over 100,000 books for refugee children in Kenya.
“Abdullahi Mire is living proof that transformative ideas can spring from within displaced communities,” said Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.
“He has shown great resourcefulness and tenacity in strengthening the quality of refugee education, ” he added.
Born in Somalia, Mire grew up in the Dadaab refugee camps in Kenya. He was eventually resettled to Norway, but a yearning to serve his community drew him back. He found work in Kenya as a journalist and set up the Refugee Youth Education HubLink is external, a refugee-led organization that has opened three libraries in the camps – stocked with donated books – and expanded learning opportunities for tens of thousands of displaced children and youth.
“The win is not for me alone,” said Mire, 36.
“It is for all the volunteers I work with… It is for the children in the schools, ” he added.
The awards will be presented at a ceremony in Geneva on 13 December at the Global Refugee Forum 2023. Hosted by journalist Ann Curry, the event will showcase the winners’ work and feature performances by Lous and the Yakuza, MIYAVI and Ricky Kej. It will also be livestreamed.
The awards are made possible through support from the Governments of Norway and Switzerland, IKEA Foundation, and the City and Canton of Geneva. They are named after the Norwegian explorer, scientist, diplomat and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen
