SOMALIA

context

The problems caused by 30 years of civil war have been compounded by a series of severe droughts and subsequent famines, leaving Somalia one of the poorest countries in the world.


Since the collapse of the education system, communities have taken different approaches to establishing locally run education services. While any progress is impressive, all these systems face enormous challenges. In many areas across the country, parents are not able to fund their children’s education. In addition to poverty, long distances to school, safety concerns, social norms favouring boys’ education, a lack of trained teachers  and the low availability of sanitation facilities, stops parents from enrolling children, particularly girls, in school.

SOMALIA IN NUMBERS

2.9m

People have been internally displaced.

7.7M

Somali men, women and children require humanitarian aid. This is close to half of the population.

3M +

Children are out of school.

what we are doing

The African Education Trust (AET), part of Street Child, started working in Somalia in 1996, at a time when many organizations were leaving the country after the aborted UN Peacekeeping mission. By working through local staff, organizations, and institutions we have been able to continue to operate throughout the country despite successive cycles of drought, famine, and conflict.


We provide essential quality education through school rehabilitation, psycho-social support for children experiencing long-term insecurity, teacher training, supporting parental involvement in school management and provision of hygiene facilities especially for girls and children with disabilities.


In all our work, we focus on excluded groups including pastoralists and people in remote rural communities, families displaced by conflict or drought, ethnic minorities, people living with disabilities, and girls and women.

Drought Emergency and Resilience Project

This programme supports efforts by the international community to reduce the high rates of illness and death caused by the extreme drought, lack of clean water and the exploitation of children in the Togdheer region of Somailand. We are providing three primary schools with water and food, supporting 441 primary school children to remain in school. In addition, 3,450 households are also benefitting from child protection services through the establishment, training, and engagement of village-level child protection committees.

Supporting displaced populations

In Jubaland, Somalia Street Child is working with  10 schools in communities where there are high numbers of returnees or displaced populations. This programme, supported by Education Cannot Wait, provides teacher training and cash grants for school improvements, such as accessibility access for children with disabilities. We work to deliver scholarships to over 750 children in poverty, over 21,000 sanitary kits to girls, and 4,000 solar lamps to enable home study. Street Child is working hard with communities to improve educational outcomes in these emergency situations. 

Vocational Education and Training

Funded by the EU this provides over 450 out-of-school youth with the life skills to generate a livelihood or find formal employment. Linked to apprenticeships and micro-loans this project promotes independence and micro-economic development, working with merging trades to provide a workforce for the future development of Somalia. 

Rural Women Education and Empowerment Project

This project is providing basic literacy and numeracy skills, alongside reproductive health, maternal health and childcare information to 300 out-of-school young women and girls (14-30 years) in Somaliland. It is being implemented in five regions of Somaliland that are inhabited by rural, pastoralist communities which have some of the highest out-of-school populations and lowest female literacy rates in the world. The project targets women and girls who missed out on education earlier in life and lack any form of literacy and numeracy skills.

NEWS & MEDIA

YOUR IMPACT in somalia

11,747

Children reached through direct enrolment or school access support.

2,068

Adults reached, including teachers supported into college to strengthen their qualifications.

30

Classrooms reached across 8 schools by renovation or construction.

choose an amount to donate

£33

could provide an emergency – affected learner in Somalia with school meals for a year. School meals are a key aspect in the retention of students in school as the one meal they receive a day at school could sadly be the only meal they have all day.

£50

could provide a family of five living in a camp for people displaced by conflict in North-East Nigeria with a food relief package to last a month, ensuring the family do not go hungry and that the children do not return to school on an empty stomach.

£100

could provide one household in Sierra Leone with livelihood support, including training and a start-up business grant, enabling them to financially recover from the pandemic and afford the costs of sending their children back to school.

OTHER

Or enter your own amount. Please give generously!

£
£10

Could provide learning kits for a child in Nigeria. These kits provide basic stationary, textbooks, and water bottles, meaning the children can fully engage in school.

£20

Could help train a community-based case worker to protect Rohingya refugee girls from sexual, physical and psychological abuse.

£40

Could help us to provide basic literacy and numeracy support to a Rohingya Refugee child in Bhasan Char Island over the 30 days.

OTHER

Or enter your own amount. Please give generously!

£
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