Girls in Somalia seize opportunity of education, but barriers remain for those with disabilities

At Haji Aden Primary on the northern edge of Dangorayo town, 14-year-old Faiza is as enthusiastic today as when she first stepped through the school gate five years ago.

She wears tangerine hijab uniform with pride, excels at maths and science, loves history and geography, works diligently on assignments with her friends and plans to become a doctor, an ambition that fills her father, a handyman and carpenter, with joy.

“I still feel excited to go to school every day,” Faiza said with a wide smile that brought dimples to her cheeks. “Waking up, walking here with my friends, learning something new every day!”

Her eagerness is partly down to how close she came to missing out on an education altogether.

Faiza’s family fled conflict in the capital Mogadishu – a thousand kilometres away – and began to rebuild their lives in Dangorayo, in the northern state of Puntland. But Faiza’s father struggled to earn the $10 a month in school fees for each of his 12 children, so while her friends went to school, Faiza stayed at home. “I would see the other girls in the neighbourhood wearing this beautiful uniform, and I wanted to be the same as them,” she said.

A dream rekindled

Faiza’s dream of education seemed to be slipping away until UNICEF offered her a scholarship to cover the fees. The scholarship is provided through UNICEF Canada’s UNdaunted programme, supported by the Government of Canada, which seeks to increase access to quality education for adolescent girls and children with disabilities, in a country where three out of five children are not in school.

Beginning three years late, Faiza was enrolled in Puntland’s accelerated basic education (ABE) scheme which compresses the curriculum allowing her to make up for lost time. She soon caught up and has become one of the top students in her class.

“A scholarship is a lifesaver,” said head teacher Mohamed Said Issa. “We have 36 girls here with scholarships, without which access to education would be extremely challenging.”

For  children displaced by conflict such as Faiza, scholarships are the difference between an education that provides a path to a brighter future, and exclusion that extinguishes hope.

For children with disabilities however, the barriers are higher still: they face social stigma and widespread discrimination and a lack of appropriate care and support, alongside the daily struggle to pay for food, let alone school fees, in a country wracked by decades of conflict, a deepening climate catastrophe and rampant poverty.

Making education inclusive

At Haji Aden Primary there are no children with disabilities among the 510 pupils, not because there are none in the community, nor because the teachers are incapable or unwilling – they have all had special training, supported by UNICEF, in inclusive education for children with disabilities and in delivering the ABE curriculum – but because the school lacks the essential tools to make inclusive education a reality.

“It is very difficult,” said Mohamed, “ideally we would like to offer education for our children with disabilities here, but it’s not possible for now because we lack the equipment.”

That might mean something as simple as the ramps that have been installed in some other schools allowing access for physically disabled children, or something more complicated such as sign language training for teachers of hearing impaired children.

For visually impaired students it means Braille textbooks, and Braille writing slates and styluses (the equivalent of pen and paper), which are currently only available in one place in Puntland, the Al-Basar Institute for the Blind in the state capital Garowe. From Dangorayo and elsewhere across north-eastern Somalia, children with serious vision impairments find their way to this pioneering institute.

When Abdinasir Gureye Kash established Al-Basar in 2008, his motivation was personal: he was born without sight, as were four of his children, and he wanted to provide them with the education that could not be found elsewhere. His 26-year-old son Ismail was among Al-Basar’s first cohort and went on to complete his primary education at the institute before attending a mainstream state secondary followed by university and then a master’s degree.

“I identified the need faced by all blind people in this country,” Abdinasir said, clutching his white walking cane.

‘We have broken barriers’

One key to the institute’s success is a pair of Everest-D Braille printers that whirr and clatter throughout the day, turning scanned pages of state curriculum textbooks into rows of patterns of raised dots that can be used by the school’s primary level pupils. Once they graduate – able to read and write in Braille – the Al-Basar students leave to attend mainstream secondary schools, but the institute continues to translate their textbooks into Braille allowing them to participate fully in the state education system.

In partnership with the education ministry, UNICEF plans to trial the printing of Braille versions of the ABE textbooks, piloting their use in schools and answering the call for inclusive education articulated by head teacher Mohamed, and eroding the stigma endured by children with disabilities in Somalia.

“We have broken down some of the barriers and shown that blind people can be educated and achieve things,” said Abdinasir with pride. “We feel like we have changed attitudes.”

He is prouder still that all of his teachers are themselves graduates of Al-Basar, including his son, Ismail. Asked where he would be without the education his father created for him, Ismail laughed loudly then shrugged, “I would be in my house, in my bedroom, doing nothing.”

Ismail’s 23-year-old colleague, Faiza Abdisalam, said, “I always wanted to be a teacher, to give back, especially to visually impaired children because I know what it’s like.”

The four girls and three boys in Faiza’s class on a recent Tuesday – aged eight to 36 – were learning to use their Braille slates, intent as they punched holes through the plastic stencil into the paper below, smiling when the words appeared beneath their fingers.

This is just the beginning, said Faiza. “It’s important to feel equal to those who can see, to fight stigma and understand that we are all the same. I want them to succeed in life,” she said of her pupils, “to go on to graduate from university and not limit themselves in spite of their vision impairment.”

For girls in Somalia – whether living with disabilities or not – the pathways to the bright future that Faiza wishes for her students are varied, but each one starts with the same thing: the powerful desire to learn and the right kind of support.