Skilled, Passionate and Ready to Serve: The Story of Umra Omar

Umra Omar is a firebrand – but of an unlikely type. Her firebrand nature is warmth as opposed to fiery, and her energy is transferred by using her fire to light the next candle instead of soaking up all the energy around her.  

Umra lived the life of many Kenyans – with a father who was hard at work, and a mother who was pursuing her education. This meant Umra spent her formative years at the feet of her grandparents, being brought up in the life of the village of Tchundwa in Lamu County. Life was simple, and in her words, she was brought up by the village. Umra left Lamu young, and moved to Nairobi where she continued with her education at Aga Khan primary school, but Lamu never left her.  

Years of opportunity found Umra exploring the world as she moved from one educational achievement to another. She completed her Bachelor’s degree in Neuroscience and Psychology and then went on to pursue a Masters in Social Justice. She may not have known it then but the seeds of her future were being carefully sown. Like many Kenyans who have travelled abroad for their tertiary education, Umra settled to find a ‘good job’ in America, and indeed she did. She lived in New York with a husband and newborn son, life was good.  

In 2015 Umra returned home, to Lamu, and found a markedly different place. Caught up between the realities of Al Shabaab and the Kenya Defence Forces (KDF), Lamu was no longer the sleepy, historic tourist spot she had known but rather, a frontline warzone.  The biggest tragedy was that health workers and teachers were reluctant to be assigned to the area, and women and children were those most affected.  

A turning point came when Umra was called one day to assist in the transfer of a newborn to a health facility in Malindi. However, before the transfer could be completed tragedy struck and the baby died. For this new mother, the reality of the delicacy of the thread between life and death without basic health services struck her like a brick wall. Deeply perturbed, she decided to try and help in a substantive way. From the short visit home, a new path unfolded. She packed up her life in New York and moved back to Lamu, and with that Safari Doctors – a medical services initiative that brings nurses, clinical officers and doctors to serve remote and disconnected communities in the Lamu archipelago and interior – was born.   

Safari Doctors relies heavily on partnerships – from the airlines that ship in medicine for free to the island, to the boats that offer subsidized rates for medics as they traverse the islands, to the nurses who brave the troubled frontiers to bring much-needed services to their fellow Kenyans. Today they serve over 1,000 patients a month. 

As Umra moves from village to village, talking with other mothers, holding babies and listening with concern to the challenges they face trying to live normal lives in the most difficult of circumstances, she knows she’s exactly where she needs to be. She serves her community, living out her light each day, bringing hope to mothers who, hopefully, will not have to live the heartache of seeing their babies die for need of a basic clinical intervention.   

For her work Umra was recognized in 2016 as a CNN Hero, an annual global award that honours extraordinary contributions to humanitarian aid and individuals who are serving their communities. Umra Omar is the very embodiment of service to humanity and #KeExcellence