Overcoming anarchy, Somalis struggle to start private schools

[Saxardiid]

Overcoming anarchy, Somalis struggle to start private schools

 

Somalis are trying to start schools from preschool to medical school, banking on eventual national stability.

BY CHRIS TOMLINSON

Associated Press

 

MOGADISHU, Somalia - In a communal goat stable, children sit under a mango tree, learning to read and write. A few feet away, in an old storage room, a clan elder teaches older children verses from the Koran, the Muslim holy book.

 

In this narrow alleyway of Mogadishu, where three or four generations of Somalis share small homes, education is getting a second chance.

 

After more than a decade of anarchy, only about one in six children of primary school age attends school, according to a U.N. survey released last week.

 

Somalia is best known as a home for murderous warlords and suspected terrorists and as the place where a U.S.-led military effort to pacify and feed the country ended in fiasco. But the vast majority of Somalis desperately want stability, including better relations with the United States.

 

Peace talks are underway, although the men with guns have failed to reach a power-sharing agreement.

 

Meanwhile, parents, teachers and aid agencies have managed to piece together a private education system from preschool to medical school.

 

Parents scrape together what money they can to pay the teachers at the makeshift schools a few dollars a month. Wealthier families send their children to more formal schools or bring the teachers into their homes.

 

While some schools receive support from overseas, most are the work of local people with local problems.

 

Some Arab donors have tried to introduce extremist ideas into the schools they fund. But Somali clerics resolutely cling to a moderate brand of Islam.

 

''We accept nothing from anyone. We are running our own schools,'' said Mohammed Issa Mohammed, an elder who manages 18 Koranic schools.

 

Ali Ahmed Farah is headmaster of Jabuti school, partially funded by the Ireland-based charity Concern Worldwide. He said the problem is that people cannot afford school fees.

 

Most children spend their days at home or scavenging through abandoned buildings and garbage dumps for food and valuables.

 

''Children in Somalia are either learning or looting,'' said Abdulrachman Abdullahi, chairman of trustees for Mogadishu University.

 

The university now has 6,000 students enrolled in nine programs, including engineering, nursing, agriculture and computer science. Somali professors from Ohio University teach in Mogadishu.

 

In 2003, Somali doctors and former university professors restarted Banadir University's medical school. Half of 22 the students are women, a remarkably high percentage for a male-dominated society.

 

The medical school was desperately needed because Somalia has only 250 doctors, compared with 960 in 1991.

 

Mogadishu University is building a 20-acre campus north of the city, and educators predict that if peace is reached and a stable government returns, students will enthusiastically fill classrooms again.

 

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[wind talker]

SOOYAAL -

 

Thanks for the article.

 

To every story, there's two sides. The prevailing notion of Mogadishu is that it has turned into a city of rubbish, looting and eternal violence. This wonderful article contradicts that view and showcases the humanity that still lingers in the city where some called home a time long ago, and some still call home today.

[Liqaye]

Thank you bro Soyaal , wind-talker it showcases the humanity of all somalis, and as you said there a two sides to every coin.

[Saxardiid]

mr ceelbuur and wind talker

its my pleasure sxb. we have to recognise and value our hard working people back home whether be xamar or anywhere else in somalia. i think xamar is city of two tales but there is emarging civil society that is working very hard by itself to fill the gabs left by lack of central govt. i think we spent lot of time focusing the bad news and ignore all the positive work done by our people. its true the security in mogadisho is not as it should be but its improving. private schools, universities, hospitals, telecommunications, factories, airways, newspaper, radios, tvs etc are making very big prograss. so it isn't bad at all.