Mennonite Central Committee

Raha Mohamud Janaqow

November 2008

I was born in the idyllic seaside city of Mogadishu more than 40 years ago. I existed when Somalia first became independent in 1960, and I lived through the first 9 years of democratic rule (until 1969); 22 years of military dictatorship (until 1991); and nearly 18 year of civil war..

I come from a family of 6 children (3 boys and 3 girls). I am the second eldest in the family. Historically my family came from central Somalia. My father was a small businessman, while my mother was housewife, taking care of the children. In the year 1960, when Somalia got its independence, my father was democratically elected as a member of the original Somalia parliament - until the year 1969, when the military took power.

When the new military regime took power, my father again reverted to his business, and he decided to keep his family out of the political sector, as he did not trust the military regime. He was a good father who pushed all his children to become highly educated (both boys and girls); and he strongly supported my mom in terms of financial and moral support.

At my father’s urging, my family always had a strong sense of the importance of education; and how transformative education could be in a person’s life. In Somali culture, families traditionally give priority to boys more than girls when it comes to education (even today), but my family was quite different, and my parents always tried to balance their children in terms of education and in all other sectors of social life.

Sometimes they used to give even more support to the girls than the boys. I can remember my father saying that, “if I educate my daughters, I educate the nation”, so my family were always trying to help the girls to fulfill their dreams - to see that one day their children would be educated to a point where they could not only fulfill their own dreams, but be in a position to help others as well. This strong family support from an early age gave me an ardent sense of public service to others.

With this background I am very conscious of my responsibility to the Somali people – and particularly to Somali women – as I am literally one of a few hundred Somali women who have had the opportunity to be educated and trained to a high standard.

As a woman - where women have traditionally had no role in the decision-making processes of Somali society - my journey has not been easy, but filled with unremitting challenges, and I have continuously been challenged to recreate my identity and my role as a part of the Somali women’s elite.

Currently I am the director of local women’s NGO called SAACID, which was incorporated in 1990, before the fall of the military regime. Concerned about the ongoing suffering of my people – particularly women, children and the poor - as the director of SAACID, I got involved in humanitarian activities, and extensively traveled through the areas that have been heavily affected by ongoing conflict. The horrors that one person could inflict on another person have affected me deeply; and I have witnessed the systematic physical, moral and spiritual starvation of millions of poor.

In my capacity as the head of the organization, I have developed grassroots programming in emergency relief, health, education, women’s advocacy, conflict resolution and conflict transformation, food security, governance and research. Through this process, I have been able to directly observe what was and wasn’t working; and give a modicum of hope to the millions who live in abject despair.

Education is part of every program that SAACID implements, whether it be formal primary or secondary education, teacher training, education in health and hygiene, education in conflict resolution and conflict transformation, education in democracy and rule of law, or even educating the international community about Somalia and the complexity of Somali society, and how the international community can positively engage in Somalia to help solve the endemic insecurity that pervades the country.

It is not possible to know the future, but what I do know is that to my dying breath I will continue to strive to bring peace, security, and prosperity to my people – particularly women, children and the poor – and a foundation stone in that journey will always be the education and experience that I have garnered, and which I want to share with all.

I hope my father would approve; and hope that he would see his investment in his daughter’s education as a good investment in educating his nation called Somalia.

 

More about Global Family in Somalia