- Title: SOMALIA: Childrens centre works to ease burden of street kids in Mogadishu
- Date: 6th March 2014
- Summary: VARIOUS OF ABDUL AHMED HUSSEIN, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, WORKING IN HIS OFFICE (SOUNDBITE) (Somali) ABDUL AHMED HUSSEIN, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT, SAYING: "The Somali government has no funds or ability to care for orphans and street children but we encourage the Somali business community and those in the Diaspora to help needy children in order to improve their lives and future
- Embargoed: 21st March 2014 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Somalia
- Country: Somalia
- Topics: Politics,Social Services / Welfare
- Reuters ID: LVA8U4TT3AFXZJH2INIHP1EBZ3IU
- Story Text: Students at the Somali Orphans and Homeless Children's Centre are attending a morning class in Mogadishu.
The children are homeless and many were orphaned at an early age, so this is their best chance at getting an education.
Somalia is one of the hardest places on earth to be a child according to global charity, Save the Children. Fewer children attend school in Somalia than almost anywhere else in the world.
Only 36 percent of girls and 45 percent of boys enroll in primary school, far fewer in the war-torn south and central regions.
Though the country launched an ambitious campaign in 2012 to get one million children into school in the next three years, many orphaned children are yet to benefit from the program.
Most lack access to systems that can promote their rights, with an absence of social structures in the country to support them.
Sadam Hussein is one of the children who stays at the children's home.
"I am fourteen years old and I have been in this centre for a year learning different subjects. I would like to be a teacher," he said.
The children's centre depends on donor funding from well wishers and volunteer services from community members to run its programs.
"I have been working at this school for two months and I am a volunteer instructor. I teach the children two subjects -- English and Somali," said Abdulah Omar, a teacher at the centre.
After the central government collapsed in 1991 when the country's leader, Siad Barre was ousted, support systems for orphans collapsed, many of who lost their parents during conflict.
But Mogadishu is slowly healing after more than two decades of civil war and anarchy in Somalia.
Street lamps now light up some of the capital's battle-scarred roads and residents are enjoying shopping and nights out. But rebuilding a life that many in the world take for granted is a slow and often imperfect process.
Many street children still remain homeless on Mogadishu streets, sniffing glue in the hope that they can get a temporary escape from their problems.
"I am street boy I lost my parents so now I live and sleep in the streets. I don't have any kind of protection for myself," said Yusuf Hassan.
The government confesses that no elaborate plans are in place yet to ensure the best interest of orphaned children in the country.
Abdul Ahmed Hussein, a Somali Member of Parliament admits that there are also not funds to care for the children.
"The Somali government has no funds or ability to care for orphans and street children but we encourage the Somali business community and those in the Diaspora to help needy children in order to improve their lives and future," he said.
Halima Mohammed, founder of the children's centre says she cannot take in all homeless children and much more still needs to be done to protect abandoned and street children from drug abuse, lack of care and education.
"There are more than two hundred street children and orphans at this centre and the only support I get is from my family living in Europe. I opened this centre when I saw a lot of children suffering in the streets of Mogadishu," said Mohammed.
The centre also provides accommodation and meals for the children.
According to Save the Children, Somalia's children also remain in protracted conflict with many serving in armed groups or facing threat of recruitment as child soldiers.
Islamist group, Al Shabaab ruled most of the southern region of Somalia from 2006 until 2011 when forces from other African nations sent by the African Union drove them out of Mogadishu and then expelled them from most urban centres.
The insurgents, who want to impose a very strict version of Islamic sharia law, still hold swathes of rural territory in southern Somalia.
The number of children killed, maimed, abused and recruited to fight in Somalia, however, dropped by more than half in the first quarter of 2013 due to less fighting between al Shabaab militants and government forces, according to the U.N. (United Nations).
Somali troops are in the process of releasing 41 children to the U.N. children's agency, UNICEF, for reintegration and the United Nations is working with the Somali government to stop the recruitment, use, killing and maiming of children. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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