Hoping to heal broken education system, Minnesota group heads to Somalia

[General Duke]

Hoping to heal broken education system, Minnesota group heads to Somalia

 

By Abdirahman Aynte

Hiiraan Online

 

 

What started off as a dream for one Somali student is finally coming to fruition after two and half years of brainstorming. Abdurashid Ali, a senior at Metropolitan State University had always yearned to help the broken education system in his native country, Somalia.

 

This Saturday, he and another two Somalis and three Americans, two of whom are college professors at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) and Inver Hills Community College (IHCC), are heading to Somalia on a "fact finding mission."

 

The group, which is self sponsoring, is hoping to connect MCTC and IHCC to Puntland State University and Nugaal University, two relatively new colleges in Somalia. They are also hoping to create the foundation for a full-fledged library in Garowe, the capital city of the semi-autonomous Puntland region in northern Somalia.

 

"I'd like to establish a professor-to-professor and student-to-student relationship," says Deborah Johnson, a member of the traveling group and an intercultural communications professor at IHCC.

 

Johnson got interested in this project after she met a number of Somali students at IHCC and learned more about their background. She later became an advisor for many of them.

 

In their 20 days in Somalia, the group will be busy providing training and seminars for professors, administrators and students. They also hope to make a documentary film.

 

Lena Jones, a political science professor at MCTC, will even speak to Puntland legislators about the American governing system and values of democracy.

 

"I'm fascinated with Somalia," said Jones, an articulate, though soft-spoken, speaker, "and all of that stems from my Somali students at MCTC."

 

MCTC has one of the largest Somali student populations in Minnesota. It's not surprising that the college and Somali Family Services, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization collected enough money to offer a one year's scholarship for 30 students in Somalia.

 

"It doesn't make any sense to help my brother or my cousin only, if I can help others along the way," said Ali, the shrewd Somali student who spearheaded this effort. "We hope this will rekindle the education spirits of many other students in Somalia."

 

The education system in Somalia remained meager following the total collapse of an effective central government 15 years ago. In recent years, though, former expatriates are revitalizing the education sector with donations amassed from Diaspora Somalis.

 

The Minnesota group, thought to be the first of its kind in the nation, is taking the extraordinary step of traveling to a country where the State Department deems too dangerous. In fact, though "morally supportive," neither IHCC nor MCTC is willing to officially sponsor the trip of their faculty members due to liability concerns. But the area where they are headed has been relatively stable.

 

The group says that they have taken the security issue into account. Volunteers who have helped this project said that they have contacted authorities in Puntland who offered total protection and mobility throughout the trip.

 

Once they return, the group hopes to reflect their experiences in a public forum.

 

Abdirahman Aynte can be reached at Ceynte@hiiraan.com

 

Source: HOL, July 3, 2006

 

 

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[Dhubad.]

^Duke, ileen waxaan Siyaasada TFG-da ahayan na waad soo report-garaysaa, balaa ka dhacday, waad yara jilicday ma istiri.

 

Good news indeed.

[Guhaad]

Minnesota on the lead again. we are always on that front page of every Somali success story. bravo to my city, its people, and the things they do. givin and keepin it alive.

 

 

I would like to see these programs extended to other areas, especially, places like Somaliland, and other relatively peaceful areas. This only shows how much the diaspora can do. how we can be part of the solution, and not the problem. this is a positive development that shows few brave individuals that are not giving and collecting monies for warlords and other ill-intended schemes and maneuvers. but advancing a cause that can ultimately be the groundworks for peace, understanding, and development.

[General Duke]

^^^ Great news these types of schemes can work nearly every where so long as the security situation is worked out. Somaliland is peaceful and secure, so are many other parts of the country.

[General Duke]

Minnesota, Somali schools find sisterhood

The relatively peaceful Puntland region offers hope for a MCTC-Somalia arrangement.

 

Mary Jane Smetanka, Star Tribune

Last update: July 02, 2006 – 9:38 PM

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Abdurashid Ali

 

Renee Jones Schneider, Star Tribune

 

 

Somalia and Minneapolis seem worlds apart. War-torn Somalia is one of the poorest countries in the world, a hot land of mostly arid plains where farmers raise goats, sheep and camels and trees yield such exotica as frankincense and myrrh.

 

But to Abdurashid Ali, the 8,200 miles that separate Minnesota and his homeland are no barrier to building closer ties. The 2005 graduate of Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC) is the driving force behind a budding partnership between that school and Puntland State University, a young college in one of Somalia's more peaceful regions.

 

Ali and a contingent from Minneapolis, including an MCTC faculty member, left Saturday for a two week visit to the Puntland region. They took with them donated scholarship money that will fully pay the $300 annual cost of attending Puntland State for 30 students. That's a big deal in a country that in 2002 had a per capita income of $226 a year, according to the World Bank.

 

The hope is that when the situation in Somalia grows more stable, the ties between MCTC and Puntland will grow into a fuller relationship that includes student and faculty exchanges. Minnesota has the nation's largest Somali population.

 

Some Puntland State officials have already visited Minnesota. MCTC officials credit Ali, 45, with nurturing a connection between the two colleges.

 

Ali is an employment counselor and a cofounder of Somali Family Services, a group that aims to improve access to health care, social services and education among Somali immigrants and to increase the ties between immigrants and Minnesotans.

 

"This really grew out of extraordinary work by Abdurashid," MCTC President Phil Davis said. "He had been a leader here among Somali students and he was very active in trying to build a bridge between Minnesota and the Puntland region in particular."

 

Ali, who emigrated in 1997, calls the sister relationship between the colleges a natural.

 

"My goal is long term, not today or tomorrow," he said. "I'm looking to the next 20 to 30 years and what will the relationship be with Somalia and Minnesota.

 

"Somalia has been at war for almost 15 years ... A lot of Minnesotans, maybe they don't know what's happened. If they see the situation in Somalia they will understand better."

 

Ali's activism began at MCTC with a successful drive to collect 40,000-plus books for libraries in Somalia. MCTC, which last fall had 7,675 students, enrolls an estimated 300 to 350 Somalis each semester. Officials say that is more than any Minnesota college, and, they believe, the highest of any U.S. college.

 

That makes the school a natural for a partnership with Puntland State, which opened in 1999 in Garowe, the capital city of the Puntland region. Puntland, in northeast Somalia, declared its autonomy in 1998. Though it does not want to separate from Somalia, Puntland operates independently and, unlike other parts of the country, has a functioning government.

 

Puntland State opened as a business college for women and rapidly expanded. It enrolls about 300 students in business, government and journalism, and is one of six African universities that have united to start an online university. The college's website shows a campus of low-slung white buildings with red roofs in a desert landscape.

 

Warnings complicate trip

 

Lena Jones, an MCTC political science faculty member and a board member of Somali Family Services, is one of five people in the delegation led by Ali, whom she met when he took one of her courses. With Somalia on the State Department's list of nations with travel warnings, MCTC isn't sending an official representative. Jones is traveling as a private citizen. She is excited about the trip but admits to some nervousness, too.

 

"One motivation to take this trip is to understand better what's happening in Somalia," she said. "I would love to see what the university is doing and explore possible future links between our students and their students, our faculty and their faculty, and perhaps explore ways of sharing skill and ideas."

 

Ali grew up in the southern half of Somalia but his family's roots go back at least four generations in Puntland. He hopes the trip will build not only educational ties between Minnesota and his homeland but emotional ones as well. MCTC has raised about $13,000 so far for scholarships in Somalia, most of it with a grant from Moneygram International in St. Louis Park. MCTC wants to raise enough money to put all 30 students through school for four years.

 

It's a worthy goal, said Jones.

 

"If MCTC could have some sort of role in helping building an effective education system [in Somalia], that's huge," she said. "And if we could establish a relationship, how that can enrich the learning of students and faculty members as well. I think the possibilities are endless."

 

 

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380

[Wiilo]

GREAT JOBS ALL THE PEOPLE THAT DID THIS,,, HATS OFF TO Y'ALL...

 

 

GO FIGURE:..........