Elham Hassen, program officer for best practices and community-based services with Pathfinder’s Evidence to Action Project, has received the Outstanding Young Professional Award from the Population, Reproductive, and Sexual Health Section of the American Public Health Association. The award was presented to her on October 31 at the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association.
The award honors an individual who deserves recognition early in her career because of her professional accomplishments, initiative, and dedication to the field.
In her acceptance speech, Hassen first thanked her no-nonsense parents, “who never let me forget where I have come from and how privileged I have been in my life and who always ask ‘what have you given back to the world?’”
She was selected because of her impressive leadership in the Evidence to Action Project her commitment to being an international reproductive health and public health champion.
“I commit to…working side-by-side with all of you,” said Hassen, “to create a future where any young girl, even the ‘most unequal’ girl can someday say: ‘I matter. I have a right to access quality health care and exist free from fear and stigma to lead a healthy and productive life of my choosing!’”
She joined Pathfinder in 2014 as part of our Evidence to Action Project, where she works to eliminate obstetric fistula in Ethiopia, expands basic and comprehensive emergency obstetric and newborn care programs at health facilities in Nigeria, and uses mobile health to provide quality family planning counseling by health workers in Tanzania.
A trained OB/GYN, Hassen has also worked for Johns Hopkins in Ethiopia, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in Niger, UNHCR in the DRC, and Save the Children in South Sudan.
