A Somali girl pursues her passion for math

[Siciid1986]

 

Maaria Osman is small and slight, with hazel eyes and a round face framed by a tight-fitting hijab, the traditional head cover worn by women throughout the Muslim world and by all female teachers and students at Abaarso Tech. Shy and reserved, she speaks softly in halting English. She is not yet fluent in the language.

 

Yet at twelve, Osman is one of the best math students in the school. Last year, she had the highest score on the math section of the national exit exam, the test administered to all eighth-grade students around the country in the last days of what is, for the vast majority of Somali students, their final year of formal education.

 

That Osman even took the exam was unusual. According to a recent survey by UNICEF, only slightly more than a quarter of Somali girls of primary school age are enrolled in school. That figure is attributable in large part to the collapse of the central government in 1991 and the decades of conflict that ensued. But the biggest obstacle to Somali girls’ enrollment, says UNICEF, is the tendency of mothers to keep their daughters home to share the burden of domestic labor.

 

For all of their daughter’s ability in the classroom—her uncommon facility for multiplying fractions, for instance—Osman’s parents had just such a plan in mind. The eighth grade was to be their daughter’s last. It wasn’t that they weren’t aware of Abaarso Tech or the fact that Osman could attend the school for free, as many students do. It was that her curricular achievements were immaterial to the family’s immediate needs. They declined his invitation.

 

But Starr persisted. Enlisting the help of some of his best female students and their mothers, he mounted a recruiting strategy worthy of a Big Ten football program. And at last, the effort paid off.

 

In the eight months since her arrival, Osman has exceeded expectations. Not only has she outperformed many of her peers—including a handful of diaspora students from the US and UK—she’s exhibited a work ethic bordering on obsession.

 

“She does math problems in her spare time,” Mike Freund, a math teacher from Illinois and the director of the undergraduate finance program, told me. “Literally every night, she’ll finish her homework and come to me to ask for more. She’s incredible. But she does have a pretty hard time dealing with it when she gets one wrong. That’s something we need to work on.”

 

It may be that Starr saw in Osman a bit of himself—the diligent student at Emory, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated summa cum laude in economics. By twenty-five, he’d become the youngest analyst at a prestigious New York hedge fund and had even managed to write a book—a primer on value investing, the philosophy first championed by the legendary analyst Benjamin Graham.

 

“He was fanatical about investment philosophy, and he’s fanatical about what he’s doing now,” says Anand Desai, a friend and former colleague of Starr’s on Wall Street, who has donated generously to the school. “He’s got this idea, this vision for the school, and he’s completely thrown himself into it. He’s become a student of Somaliland, because what drives him is being right by the reasoned approach.”

 

For Hodan Guled 04MPH, a Somali refugee from Mogadishu, Starr has served as an inspiration. In 2008, Guled founded S.A.F.E. (Somali and American Fund for Education) with the goal of improving access to education for Somali youth by strengthening the capacity of the country’s existing schools, primarily through capital improvement projects.

 

“I was always looking for a way to give back,” she says. “Somalia needs so many things. And I realized, for its long-term growth, education is the most important thing we can invest in. If people are educated, they can think beyond the clan rivalries. And they can both get and create jobs.”

 

Several months ago, Guled returned to Somalia for the first time since 1993, when, as a twelve-year-old, she fled the country with the rest of her family.

 

“We got on one of the last flights out,” she recalls. “We were very lucky.”

 

In addition to visiting friends and relatives, Guled stopped by Abaarso Tech to meet Starr and to see with her own eyes the biochemistry lab built partly with a donation from S.A.F.E.

 

“Abaarso Tech was our first school,” she says. “At the time, we didn’t have a process for identifying schools, and I read about Abaarso in the Emory Wheel. So I contacted Jonathan. I remember he was so passionate, so enthusiastic about it. And I thought, wow, he lives there. That’s impressive.”

 

On a friday morning last march, Starr stood before an auditorium packed with guests of the first annual Abaarso Tech Open House. Pacing the stage in khaki pants and a freshly ironed button-down, he told them about new projects under way: the wind turbine that would reduce the school’s dependence on diesel generators; the $65,000 mosque currently under construction; and the decision by the College Board, publisher of the SAT, to begin the process of recognizing Abaarso Tech as the country’s first official test center.

 

And then he moved on to the feature presentation: the Best Student competition. The winner, he said, would spend one year at Worcester Academy, the private coed boarding school in Massachusetts that Starr himself attended as a kid.

 

“This was an extremely difficult decision,” he said. “Our four finalists are all outstanding.” But the previous week’s practice SAT exam had put one candidate ahead of the pack.

 

Mubaraak Mahamoud, everyone knew, was the smartest student in school and one of the most mature. A native of Hargeisa, he grew up in an Ethiopian refugee camp before making his way back to his hometown. When Mahamoud first arrived, he spoke no English at all. No one could have predicted how quickly he would excel. “He just dominates in the classroom,” says Harry Lee, Abaarso Tech’s dean of students and head basketball coach. “He also works extremely hard and has a great attitude. All the boys look up to him.”

 

“Mubaraak has done something few American students ever do,” Starr told the room. “He scored a 710 on the math section of a practice SAT exam. That is actually higher than the average score on math for incoming students of MIT.

 

“Congratulations, Mubaraak, you’re going to America.”

 

And with that, the room erupted, and Mahamoud was carried out on the shoulders of his cheering classmates into the blinding light of the Somali sun.

 

 

[Dhagax-Tuur]

Thank you for posting this. It is very inspirational.

 

Is this a school for the high achievers selected through their talent or just any other school in Hargeisa area?

 

Thx again.

[Juxa]

This is great congrats to the students for their hard work maasha allah

[Som@li]

Masha Allah, Keep it up

[Aaliyyah]

mashallah both to the article and the link u posted below.

 

Congrats to the students, alle ha garab galo!

 

salaam

[Axmed-InaJaad]

shes better off raising kids n being mother. math is not for girls

[Som@li]

^Miyaan gabdho kula dhalan? Miyayna se ku dhalin? Mise midba xisaabta kaa badisay? Get over it

[Axmed-InaJaad]

Som@li;742310 wrote:

^Miyaan gabdho kula dhalan? Miyayna se ku dhalin? Mise midba xisaabta kaa badisay? Get over it

hunno ghabdha xisaabta iyo waxbarasho uma fiicno. awlaad ina dhalaan baa fiican

 

xisaabta aniga waxba ka ma aqaani. quranka iyo diinta baan ku fiicanahay.

[chubacka]

MarshAllah a worthy project.

[Garnaqsi]

Thank you for posting this, Siciid1986! Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

Som@li;742310 wrote:

^Miyaan gabdho kula dhalan? Miyayna se ku dhalin? Mise midba xisaabta kaa badisay? Get over it

In order to stay sane in an online forum, it's wise to know who and what to ignore.

[Som@li]

^true, Garnaqsi

[Axmed-InaJaad]

Garnaqsi;742482 wrote:

Thank you for posting this, Siciid1986! Makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

In order to stay sane in an online forum, it's wise to know who and what to ignore.

sax. dadka qarkood wakhti bay ka luminiyaan