FGM survivor crowned Best Nurse in the World

A Kenyan Nurse, Anna Qabale Duba has been Crowned the Best Nurse in the world at the Dubai-based Aster Guardians Global Awards on Thursday Night.

Anna managed to beat more than 24,000 nominees to clinch the top prize which saw her bag a cash prize of 250,000$.

Her great works of advocacy against early marriages and end to Female Genital Mutilation propelled by her Foundation the Qabala Duba Foundation have been credited to the success. Additionaly, the Qabala Duba Foundation has been on the forefront in educating parents on key issues of sexual and reproductive health as well as donating free sanitary pads to empower girls to continue with education, an initiative that has benefitted more than 3000 girls so far.

Anna Being the first child to undergo formal education in her family of 19 children would later be the only university graduate from her Torbi village where she pursued a Bachelors in Nursing to help her community in health services delivery and later graduated with a Masters in Epidemiology.

The 31 year old currently works at the Marsabit County Referral Hospital where she has been doing the works that she lived to dream about.

Anna narrates how her journey has met challenges that she had to beat odds to finally meet her ambitions, she explained to the BBC how she underwent FGM at the age of 12 and had to escape forced marriage aged 14.

Her works has not gone unrecognized, She was crowned the first miss Tourism Marsabit and also won the Miss Tourism Kenya Peace and Miss Tourism Kenya Investment 2013/ 2014 while in 2019 she won the Global Citizens people’s choice awards in New York.

“The whole of yesterday night I couldn’t sleep because of imaginations. I am just wondering, how did I win this? I checked in the global map of my village and compared to the stage that I won the award and was like this is a totally different world”, Anna told the BBC.

“I am who I am and where I am because I am educated”, Anna said.

Anna plans to use the money she won to build more schools and expand boarding facilities in her foundation. She encourages people to keep dreams valid: