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SayidSomal

Begging Bowl

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^ :D i wrote an article on institutional begging by politician of the Somali peninsular. i forgot to save.

 

article divulged on the history of somalis begging for things of institutional nature from “international donors” Germany please train, equip, pay for our police, italy/SSR please train, equip etc our military, this country and the next please gives scholarships and come and build us a road et cetera, et cetera etc etc ..... continueing to this day.. 'UNDP' please! 'international community' etc

 

just was wondering, when i am going to hear somali trained, built, equiped, designed or even better made in qardho :D

 

p.s. mr Xiiny - habben hore baan kugu riyooday addoo timi cad bidar ka xiiraya. :D

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ElPunto   

By Abdi Aynte and Sahra Gane

 

For four years, Binti Jeylani didn�t smile at least in public. A big tumor covered the 17-year-old�s mouth and chin. Kids teased her and people in her small village of Awdhiigle gazed her unstoppably.

 

�She had to deal with physical pain and the emotional pain,� said her father, Jeylani Mohamed Abdi-Garad. �That�s too much for a young girl like her.� Binti was 13 when she tumbled in a dirt road near her family�s farm. She hit the ground face down. By the time she collected herself, she noticed a gush in her chin. A small amount of blood trickled out, but it didn�t seem like a big problem.

 

In farming communities like Awdhiigle, small injuries like that go untreated, in part because there�s no medical facility (the nearest one is in Mogadishu, some 40 miles to the north), or people can�t afford medical care. For the Jeylani family, it was a combination of the two.

 

The �weird thing�

 

Young Binti went about business as usual. A few months into the injury, �a weird thing emerged out of her chin,� said her father.

 

Less than a year, that �weird thing� morphed into a full-fledged tumor, the size of two tennis balls. Binti was in constant pain and no one seemed to know what it was. Her father, a corn and sesame farmer, took her to a hospital in Mogadishu. Doctors there told him that Binti needs an urgent attention, but that they don�t have the necessary equipment to undertake the massive surgery she desperately needs.

 

�It dawned on me,� said Jeylani, a father of eight. �The doctors said you�ve to take her abroad.� Before hid daughter�s condition took a turn to the worst, Jeylani never left his native Awdhiigle.

 

Thus began an odyssey that would take him and his daughter all the way to a hospital in Minneapolis. Nonprofit organizations in Mogadishu posted Binti�s attention-grabbing photo on Somali websites, known as a hotbed of Somali Diaspora philanthropists.

 

Neither Jeylani nor Binti had ever heard of the Internet. In fact, Jeylani admitted of having doubts about the potential success of the Internet appeal. But as a father, whose child is in dire need of medical attention, he said he had to take whatever offer that came through.

 

Offer of help

 

Just weeks after Binti�s photo appeared on Dayniile.com and Somalitalk.com, two popular Somali websites, the first call of help came through. Abdi Muse Mahaay and his wife Zahra called the nonprofit organization in Mogadishu to inform them that they will do everything they can to bring Binti to Minnesota for treatment.

 

�My heart jolted and I felt an urge to do something for Binti,� said Mahaay. He�s hardly a stranger to humanitarian

 

work. In February, he successfully brought Murayo Nur Ali, an 11-year-old rape victim, to Mayo Clinic, a world class medical facility in Rochester, Minnesota, where he works.

 

Like that case, Mahaay and his wife mobilized their connections for Binti�s sake. He solicited hospitals across Minnesota and got a response from the University of Minnesota Medical Center (UMMC) in Minneapolis. The hospital offered a free treatment for Binti, if she can be brought there.

 

Mahaay then enlisted the help of Aabiyo Ali, a community maverick with a knack for fundraising, to collect funds for Binti and her father�s airfare. In few weeks, Ali and two young women, Zamzam and Aisha, successfully collected $5,000 to cover the cost of the trip.

 

Meanwhile, Mahaay was lobbying the State Department to hasten the visa for Binti and her father. The two were flown from Mogadishu to Nairobi on a ticket paid by Tabouk Shipping Company, a Dubai-based Somali trading corporation that agreed to exchange that for one year free advertisement on Somalitalk.com

 

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