New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and his wife Sheryl WuDunn will publish their new book in September, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.

That book is previewed in the NY Times Sunday magazine issue of August 23, 2009 and it can be read online here: The Womens Crusade. Edna Adan is featured in the article. Here is an excerpt:

An obstetric fistula, which is a hole created inside the body by a difficult childbirth, leaves a woman incontinent, smelly, often crippled and shunned by her village — yet it can be repaired for a few hundred dollars. Dr. Lewis Wall, president of the Worldwide Fistula Fund, and Michael Horowitz, a conservative agitator on humanitarian issues, have drafted the 12-year plan — and it’s eminently practical and built on proven methods. Evidence that fistulas can be prevented or repaired comes from impoverished Somaliland, a northern enclave of Somalia, where an extraordinary nurse-midwife named Edna Adan has built her own maternity hospital to save the lives of the women around her. A former first lady of Somalia and World Health Organization official, Adan used her savings to build the hospital, which is supported by a group of admirers in the U.S. who call themselves Friends of Edna Maternity Hospital.

Read more at the blog On the Ground and at the web site created especially for the book, Half the Sky Movement.

Also, there’s this brief article: Do-It-Yourself Foreign Aid:

Find a cause that resonates with you, learn more about it and adopt it. For example, we send checks to support an extraordinary Somali woman, Edna Adan (see above), who has invested her savings and her soul in her own maternity hospital in Somaliland (ednahospital.org).

Finally, Edna is featured some more in this audio slide show, narrated personally by Kristof, about courageous women in the developing world: A Powerful Truth.