International Development Division : IDD
November 2009
A New Home for Learning
Somali Communities Mobilize to Build Learning Centers
Great learning can happen anywhere. Just ask participants in the Somali Interactive Radio Instruction Program (SIRIP), which for four years has been providing Somali communities with access to quality education in very challenging circumstances. In run-down schools, in open-air huts, under trees, and even in camps for internally displaced people, teachers and mentors supported by SIRIP help learners–primarily children in grades 1 through 5--improve their math, literacy, and life skills.
Given the opportunity, though, some communities are building a permanent home for learning. SIRIP recently partnered with six villages, and is currently collaborating with 20 more, to construct learning centers in remote locations where schools are too far away for most children to attend.
Safe from heat, cold, wind and other distractions, learners are able to make even more of their opportunity for an education. During lively classes guided by SIRIP’s Interactive Radio Instruction program, Somali music, poetry and drama reverberate from brick walls covered by dapper red roofs. The scene provides a major contrast to learners’ previous surroundings.
“During the time when I used to learn under the tree, I used to see animals, people passing . . . I used to see dust in every corner of the class,” said Fatima Abdi Salah, a 14-year-old student from Ceel-Lamaan, a nomadic community in rural northern Somalia. Egal Salah Geele, a teacher in Ceel-Lamaan, added that he recalls “pausing the lessons for a while, due to our curiosity for trying to know what sound is going on in nearby houses and sometimes staring at gatherings of the community.”
A Partnership for Building
Motivated by those far-from-ideal conditions and their excitement about quality education, rural communities responded to a SIRIP invitation and requested support to build a learning center. The six communities chosen for a first round of grants–Ceel-Lamaan, Gor-Gor, Madare, Maluugta, Galoley and Marawade--eagerly committed to working together with SIRIP to establish the centers.
SIRIP provided funding and help with planning and managing the building projects. Each community provided land, stones, sand and water, as well as site clearance and foundation excavation, valued at approximately $5,320. Perhaps as importantly, each village established or strengthened a Community Education Committee (CEC), which led the building effort and pledged to ensure ongoing material support for mentors who would teach the children. But the committee members were not alone in their endeavors.
“Since education is the base of life, every member of the community struggled to contribute his or her effort to erect the building,” noted Ahmed Mahmoud Abdalle, a community leader in Madare. He added that the community’s ongoing efforts will “make a good inheritance for our coming generation.”
Access to Education
The heart of that inheritance is access to education: approximately 1,000 school-age children, almost all of them previously out of school, live among the six communities who so far have built learning centers with SIRIP support. All told, through this and other initiatives, SIRIP has helped enroll about 23,746 out-of-school children in some of the neediest parts of Somalia.
The people of Gor-Gor were especially appreciative of SIRIP’s support after having suffered a setback. With the nearest school 34 miles away, the people of this nomadic settlement had organized to erect a simple, open-air learning center consisting entirely of sticks. Recently, though, the nearby well was contaminated, forcing the community to hold classes under a tree outside of the village until it formed the partnership with SIRIP. Gor-Gor’s new learning center has two classrooms, an office, a storage room, and two latrines.
Attracting Parents and Students–and Keeping Them
There as in the other communities, having the building has meant a dramatic change for families. Mustapha Da’ar Aden, a mentor in Marawade, sums it up this way: “The students’ enrollment has increased, and this has been the result mainly of two factors: the mobilization and sensitization of the community and the good building that has attracted both the parents and the students.”
The expectation is that quality education will keep them coming to the learning centers. In a recent assessment, grade 1 learners supported by SIRIP in various settings achieved results 15% higher in literacy and 20% higher in math than their non-SIRIP counterparts, while older SIRIP learners showed learning gains of 21% as compared to 8% for other older learners.
Classes now take place under a roof in Ceel-Lamaan, Gor-Gor, Madare, Maluugta, Galoley and Marawade, but with community involvement, new buildings, and the support of a project with such impressive results, the sky just may be the limit for learners in these communities.
IDD is a division of Education Development Center (EDC), an international, nonprofit organization with more than 325 projects dedicated to enhancing learning, promoting health, and fostering a deeper understanding of the world.
© 2009 Education Development Center