Mariam Dini's World

Governments shape their people to become productive and efficient by educating them. Since the end of the civil war, the education sector has been steadily improving, with government officials and businessmen, realizing the importance of education for the country's long-term development, working to revive it. However, it has led to a situation outside the control of the government, with various confusing systems and structures used in primary and secondary schools, which have adopted any system preferred by the owners. Even the school term and the textbooks used vary from school to school in different parts of the country. Curriculum The wane quality of education in Somalia has been fueled by a variety of educational systems. The country's curriculum was introduced less than eight years ago. Before that, it was taught in different curricula due to the lack of quality of Somali students, as well as the dwindling of the Somali language, although now the curriculum is written in t...

Over the last 30 years, hundreds of thousands of people have fled Somalia because of political instability, insecurity, and a dangerous civil war that broke out in the 1990s. Today, thousands of Somali refugees remain in neighboring countries and millions are internally displaced in Somalia. In the last few days, I have been monitoring the situation of IDPs in Mogadishu where there is water scarcity, food insecurity, flimsy shelters, poor health, lack of education, lack of local governance among many others. Water scarcity Water sources in Somalia are drying up at a rapid rate as a looming drought intensifies, leaving 70 percent of families across the country without access to safe drinking water. Thousands of children are now reliant on emergency water trucking and unprotected wells or are forced to leave their homes in search of water. https://tinyurl.com/2p8ubzjm . There is a Somali proverb that says "Soul is water, life is milk" which means that the first thing you...

On November 4, 2021, four amazing and challenging years of university culminated in the graduation ceremony for the class of 2021. It was surreal and strangely unexpected—even after all of the testing, preparation, and exams, it doesn't feel like it could possibly be time to graduate. University was a stressful couple of years, where I shed some tears over assignments, struggled to fit in. But I also learned so much about myself as a person .  Even through all the struggles of late nights studying, the need to adapt quickly to new subjects, new lecturers, and struggling to master new techniques, it still feels like it's gone by too fast. It's bittersweet, also, to be writing a blog post about my time at Mogadishu University (MU) after four years. I'm extremely grateful for the experiences I've had at MU. Over the past four years, I've been taught by a wonderful faculty and also by an extremely dedicated and inspirational team of public administrators. My Pub...

  The biggest and most expensive weapon a country has is the youth especially when young people have received equal educational opportunities. Expressing your experiences, abilities, skills, and ideas is what contributes to change. Every positive change brings prosperity.  Young people in Somalia are not just the future of the country; they are also the majority. Nearly three-quarters of the population is under 30 years old. Most are born after the overthrow of the Siad Barre regime in 1991 and have only known conflict and violence. An entire generation has missed out on education, employment, and knowing what a stable life is. Many lost hope for a better future. When it comes to education, Somalia has one of the lowest enrolment rates in the world. A survey showed that in Somalia overall, 27 percent of youth aged 14-29 have not completed any type of school, 25 percent attended a Koranic school, 27 percent attended Primary school, and 21percent went to secondary school o...

Every time you start a new activity in the community, especially when you are practicing some skills that are not common for girls, you will face a lot of pressure from different sections of the society, particularly in a country where girls are traditionally not allowed to do some of the things men do. It is quite common for our people to try to discourage you from gaining certain knowledge if you are a girl. Fatima Aweis Osman, a young girl born in Saudi Arabia in Jeddah, is an artist who first returned to Mogadishu in 2015. She started her education journey in Saudi Arabia but finished high school in Mogadishu. Fatima's family did not have any art background and it was not something she went to school to learn. “My family did not have an art background, and I did not have a place to study. It would have been nice if I had that opportunity but there was no art center, it was only something I loved”. She noted. “One day, our teacher brought us an art painting for the first...

I was surprised to see children being sold weapons to celebrate their Eid holidays. The opportunity to study saved my life. The most important thing people are expected to focus on is education, especially the education of children growing up in war zones. We are a nation that nurtures its children with weapons made during the festive season, especially on holidays. Millions of children in Somalia are out of school. Children living with disabilities face even more challenges and adolescent girls are seldom able to complete secondary education. Children in nomadic pastoralist communities are constantly on the move and often denied their rights to an education. When children go to school, they are rarely able to benefit from it fully. Classrooms are often overcrowded, water and sanitation facilities are inadequate, and trained teachers and school books are hard to come by. The poor quality education is reflected in students’ results. Children living with disabilities face even more ...