Support children
As a result of the civil war which ravaged the country during the late 1980s and early 1990s, the majority of the population lost their economic assets, including homes, lands, farms and jobs, and went into exile or become internally displaced after the war, many people returned again to their place of origin and tried to restart their lives from the scratch. Consequentially, the immediate causes of the high rate of unemployment are exacerbating not only by the mere existence of large number of disadvantaged people and loss of government economic structures but also limited availability of people with employable skills and basic education.
GAVO has been supporting the children in difficult circumstance including street children sniffing gum along the streets of big towns in Somaliland following a long period of social strive and clan conflict in Somaliland. The young volunteers forming GAVO could not watch the plight of the mentally ill and children in difficult circumstances that were marginalized and were forgotten in the streets of Somaliland big towns, including Berbera, Hargeisa, Burao, and Borama. GAVO firstly established small center at the Berbera Mental hospital where the street children were getting psychosocial support in 1993. The center offered basic skills of numeric and literacy to the children. In addition, the center offered accommodation, food and medical services for the children in the center. A lot have been achieved and the most significant changes resulted from the project were;
- Firstly, the number of street children in Berbera had reduced dramatically by 23%, since the establishment of the project.
- Secondly, the public outcry has significantly reduced and the street children are no longer perceived as a threat to the society and to themselves too. Since the inception of the project, there has been more community support to the project
- 145 street children have been re-integrated back to their families.
- ? 10% of these children has been transferred and join to the formal schools after finished the alternative basic education in GAVO center, there children are now continuing their education
what we write
Case Study in barbera.
Abdirahaman Suleiman is one of the students who have recently graduated from GAVO vocational skills training (VTC), in October 2006. Three years ago Abdirahaman who is now 21 years old, left from Laswelle District, one of the rural districts in Sahil region, to Berbera town. Before coming to Berbera, he has never attended formal education in the village. He plays a vital role in the Somali pastoral economy and the mainstay of the government of Somaliland . Among Somalis culture, children under seven are responsible for young livestock grazing around the house, while those between the ages of seven and ten are sent out to look after the adult livestock leaving in the morning and coming home in the evening. So, at the age of six, Abdirahaman had already started looking after sheep and goats round his homestead. As may be in other pastoral or nomadic societies in Africa, the value of children among Somalis especially in the rural areas includes being able to participate in the breadwinner activities such as looking after animals, or casual labour works such as building
"aqal” to make subsistence life possible. ( the aqal is a Somali traditional round hut made from grass and trees),
The role of young boys and girls change with age; those between the ages of seven and ten are sent out to look after the adult livestock grazing including camel in the distant grazing areas joining their cousins and brothers
Nobody persuaded Abdirahaman to leave the village for Berbera two years ago. His aspiration for education came naturally, and upon request his uncle who is a religious leader facilitated his trip to Berbera town.
Abdirahaman joined GAVO Alternative Basic Education Programme in 2004 where he learned literacy and language lessons for six months. He did not know how to read and write Somali language before, but after six month, he was able to write and read. It was this stage of development that moved Abdirahaman into second stage. He joined Vocational skills training where he studied basic fishing for nine months. Abdirahaman did not stay with his uncle in Berbera his uncle, as a religious teacher has been in constant move in and out of Berbera for religious activities. As a result, Abdirahaman had no any other alternative way of surviving so as to pursue his studies. This and other similar cases motivated GAVO to decide to support more than 24 children including Abdirahaman by providing accommodation, food and other basic needs for these children while attending literacy and language classes as well as VTC training in the center for consecutive two years
Basic fishing skills training, however was not Abdirahaman’s primary interest in vocational education. He preferred undertaking Electricity course that was among other courses offered by GAVO VTC. However, it was too late for him because other courses including electricity were already filled up with other trainees and no more chances were available. This has been a constant challenges for GAVO VTC programme during registration for new intakes. It is only one VTC in Berbera, which is being depended by many youth and young adults who have little access to attend formal education. Majority of these people are vulnerable children who moved from rural areas and others are returnees from refuge in neigbouring countries. Number of candidates who wish to join the training is high but because of limited space and resources they do not get access to GAVO VTC.
Abdirahaman has now completed his nine -month course in basic fishing, and has plan to look for employment with fishing companies here in Berbera town. He acknowledges that he has no plan to go back to the village, only occasionally and stay shortly. Somaliland is one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, facing high unemployment problems. Unlike other countries in Africa which receive multilateral human and material supports, and which have been able to create employment opportunities in private and public sectors, Somaliland remains internationally unrecognized government, and has since the 1990s, been struggling to recover from devastated war-damaged economy and little has been done to improve social services including education.
Majority of rural population has no access to formal education. Those who migrate to the growing towns and sub –towns still find no means to survive, nor do they get easy access to education and other social services. Youth are the most noticeable affected group, many cases of street children are increasingly emerging in these towns including Berbera. Some of them cannot even afford single meal and their accommodation is on the corridors of old buildings some of which are ruins left during British protectorate in Somaliland.
Abdirahaman is no longer staying at GAVO center after having completed his studies in October 2006. He is among other 23 youth who were staying in the center for more two years since 2004. Abdirahaman, however acknowledges that GAVO made him to move a big step, from illiterate to literate level and finally vocational level. For him life is still gloomy though, he has no job yet nor can he afford to get basic needs including food and accommodation. Occasionally, His friends in Berbera town support him for food, in many circumstance he gets only two meals a day.
Berbera climate is hot with some few months of cold weather. This makes it easy for the population here, which is estimated to be 45,000 during cold weather and during summer goes down up to 15,000, to find easy accommodation with simple shelter. This situation would perhaps be the reasons why Abdirahaman does not find accommodation a problem as long as he gets food
The World Food Programme (WFP) supported GAVO VTC center by providing foodstuff including rice, maize flour and cooking oil for the trainees who found accommodation at the center.
This support made Abdirahaman and his fellow trainees obtain their three meals a day. No longer this support is available from WFP for the past three months (September-November). GAVO has, however tried to fill up this gap by providing the trainees in the center with food for three months which WFP stopped its assistance. GAVO is no longer able to provide food to the trainees who have now completed their nine months of training. Abdirahaman and his colleagues were the sufferer of this situation, they were yet completely prepared to leave the center. After all they were waiting for their graduation ceremony and certificates before they completely left the center and find other means of surviving including searching for employment opportunities.
Searching for employment in existing companies and institutions might be the first choice and strategy of the graduates from GAVO VTC, followed by Self-employment through forming income-generating groups, but lack of capital to buy tools, raw materials and other important requirements might be a challenge among the graduates. This is another important aspect that GAVO would like to work out in a bid to help graduates-Skills Promotion through Income Generating Groups, to help youth who learn vocational skills from different institutions in Somaliland but have no means to apply their skills for better livelihoods.
To wind up our interview with Abdirahaman we had a bit discussion on HIV and AIDS awareness. “ I don’t want to marry until when I get job”, Abdirahaman insists. He highlights two main modes of HIV infection: Heterosexual contact and Blood transfusion. Abdirahaman has never attended HIV & AIDS- related training, his awareness on HIV transmission was from his friends in Berbera town and he once watched television programme showing about HIV and AIDS issues. Abdirahaman is not alone with such low level of HIV education among youth groups in Berbera. GAVO has already noticed this situation and under Youth & HIV/AIDS project, several awareness activities have been carried out since 2005.Plan is now in place to mainstream HIV and AIDS education in the coming VTC intake programme, 2007. An entry point has been developing HIV & AIDS education manual, followed by training of VTC trainers on HIV & AIDS education. It is anticipated that this plan would yield “dual benefit” to the trainees; benefit from vocational skills and trainees be aware of HIV and AIDS epidemic as well as participating in the efforts geared towards responding to the threat posed by the HIV and AIDS pandemic world over.
Ahmed & his friend Abdurrahman aged 10-13 years doing shoe shine work alongside “Number one Street” in Berbera town. Such cases are many not only in Berbera, but also in other major towns of Somaliland. Achieving “Universal Primary Education” in Somaliland will require huge resources to create more learning spaces and establishment of alternative access routes to primary education. Between 2001 and 2002, GAVO started Alternative Basic Education programme for such vulnerable children. More than 500 children benefited. The programme however, collapsed due to lack of funding.
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