Dr. Hawa Abdi is an OB/GYN (and a lawyer) who lives and works in Somalia with her daughters, also doctors, Dr. Amina Mohamed and Dr. Dr. Deqo Mohamed. In 1983, she opened a small clinic in Somalia -- which became a refuge as Somalia devolved into civil war. Her one-room clinic has grown to encompass a hospital, a school and a refugee camp for some 90,000 women and children, she estimates, who were displaced by war.

In 2010, Glamour named Dr. Abdi and her daughters "Women of the Year," and called them the "Saints of Somalia." Nicholas Kristoff wrote a stirring tribute to her work titled "Heroic, Female and Muslim." And she works largely on her own; as Glamour notes: "While Dr. Abdi has gotten some help, many charities refuse to enter Somalia. 'It’s the most dangerous country,' says Kati Marton, a board member of Human Rights Watch. 'Dr. Abdi is just about the only one doing anything.'"