Anna Qabale Duba, a nurse from Marsabit County, has won the Global Nursing Award at a grand ceremony held in Dubai.
Ann Duba, who is the first-ever recipient of the Aster Guardians Global Nursing Award, has bagged Ksh29 million prize money.
She was announced the winner in a grand ceremony held in Dubai to commemorate International Nurses Day.
"This is a win for Kenya, for Africa and the girls in the villages," Anna Qabale Duba said after receiving the award.
According to an update by Aster Guardians, Duba has used her Qabale Duba Foundation to advocate for gender equality in her community.
"Under the Qabale Duba Foundation, she built a school in her village where children could study in the morning and adults in the afternoon. She chose education because she understood that illiteracy held people back from learning new things and changing harmful cultural norms.
"Apart from learning to read and write, women at the school learned about the importance of antenatal care, skilled deliveries, and Sexual Reproductive Health & Rights. These initiatives got recognition locally and internationally, including winning the Waislitz Global Citizen’s Choice award of $50,000 in 2019. Additionally, the results from this noble endeavour were quite evident. Female genital mutilations and early marriage had reduced tremendously. The largely pastoral community opened up to women giving birth in hospitals. More mothers started sending their daughters to school," part of the statement reads.
Aster Guardians received more than 24,000 applications from nurses in more than 184 countries.
