Action Against Disasters Somalia-AADSOM

Action Against Disasters Somalia -AADSOM is a national, non-for-profit humanitarian organization that is committed to save lives, alleviate suffering, and maintain human dignity in the face of man-made crises and natural disasters in Somalia. AADSOM was established in 2008 by a group of local professionals with a cumulative experience of over 20 years in the fields of humanitarian aid and development. The type of activities undertaken by the organization range from capacity building to service delivery, with focus remaining on the deprived and marginalized segments of the society. Whereas in terms of operations what characterizes AADSOM’s functioning are its efforts to (a) enlist involvement of the locals when initiating activities at the grass root level; and (b) mobilize women for bringing peace, tolerance, and development in society. AADSOM’s key thematic areas of intervention include Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Food security and Livelihoods (FSL), Health and Nutrition (H&N), Protection and Education. More broadly, AADSOM seeks to bring about a paradigm shift on all its key thematic areas through greater mainstreaming and focus on the following cross-cutting themes: gender equality and environmental protection. This is because AADSOM firmly embraces gender mainstreaming as a strategy towards realizing integration of gender perspectives into the preparation, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of programs, policies, and regulatory measures, with the view of promoting equality and accessibility between women and men henceforth combating gender-based discrimination.  Because AADSOM’s core mandate is tackling with disasters, the organization distinguishes itself from other actors responding to such crisis whether caused by conflict, violence, or natural disasters with impartiality – irrespective of race, gender, nationality, religious belief and, or class.

In purely humanitarian terms, AADSOM’s mission is to actionably respond to emergencies caused by both natural and human-induced disasters through immediate life-saving interventions, sustainable recovery, and development programs and through renewed disaster-prevention solutions.