Somali students study to save their home country

[Gabbal]

Somali students study to save their home country

 

Somali-born Abdulfatah Issak sits at a wooden study table in Ohio State's Science and Engineering Library, reviewing microbiology and timing himself during practice exams for the Medical College Admissions Test. It is past 1 a.m. With a nervous, periodic bump of his knee against the table, he looks out the window, pondering a question. With the darkness outside, he can barely see the building next door, still under construction.

 

Though the MCAT deadline looms near, Issak pushes away his worries about the date. He knows exactly why he is pressuring himself to take the test and graduate with research honors in OSU's competitive microbiology program: Since the age of 10, Issak has longed to be a doctor.

 

Issak's Somali roommate, Nasir Hassan, who graduated from OSU last winter with a degree in pharmacy, also sits at a desk preparing for the MCAT. Beyond the red brick walls of the library, their Somali friend, Bishare Gardad, is at her home studying for an organic chemistry exam. In all, two-thirds of OSU's 90 Somali students are training to be doctors, nurses, nutritionists and research scientists, Issak said. Somali students even joke about their being pre-med.

 

"We call it pre-Somali," Issak said. But he does not joke about why Somalis want to become doctors.

 

In 1999, Issak came to Columbus from central Somalia because his mother had grown anxious about his future education and safety. After civil war broke out in 1991, "children simply stopped going to school," Issak said. His family had heard about the men and boys slaughtered in Mogadishu and in villages throughout Somalia. His mother understood what education could mean for him.

 

"She arranged for me to leave the country with my older brother," he said.

 

The two brothers came to live with relatives in Columbus' Somali community, about five miles north of OSU's campus. At the time, Abdulfatah was 16.

 

Back in Somalia, the civil war had entered its eighth year. Looters raided hospitals and clinics; armed mercenaries squatted in Mogadishu General, once one of the most advanced hospitals in the Horn of Africa. The country's only medical training program shut down and doctors and nurses fled the country or were killed. Outside the capital of Mogadishu, rural and nomadic people of the Somali countryside fared far worse: with the overthrow of the Siad Barre government, the war's trigger point, the once free public health system crashed.

[- Femme -]

^ Where is the rest of the story or the link? But yeah, majority of somalis are in health and sciences. Greaat!

[Gabbal]

Sorry! To read the rest you have to subscribe to their paper.

[- Femme -]

^ Don't tell me ur not a subscriber? Cause if ur not... :mad:

[ElPunto]

^yeah damn - it sucks. Such a good article.

[Blessed]

Hmmmm, good, good! But how many will actually go back?

[ElPunto]

Originally posted by Blessed:

Hmmmm, good, good! But how many will actually go back?

Nonestly doesn't matter - as long as you have Somalis taking advantage of opportunities to better themselves. It will eventually trickle down.