Quite often I am asked by people abroad to tell them what exactly I am doing in Somaliland.
Let me begin with a brief overview over how it happened that I ended up here in Somaliland. To start with, I should say that hardly anybody deliberately decides to work in Somaliland and then looks for a job in this country. Usually its the other way round: you're surfing job ads at a webpage like reliefweb, you see an interesting job that matches your qualifications just too perfectly, then you look for the location, and eventually you grab a map to find out that Somaliland is the internationally not recgnized independent north western part of Somalia. In the first moment you feel a slight shiver running down your back, but soon after arrival most people realize that Somaliland is totally, and in a positive way, different from what we all know as the mess in Southern Somalia (sadly, the media has reported extremly one sided from this part of the world over the last 15 years)
About two years ago, I was a doing some kind of research in Kenya - and as it often happens, I got to know somebody who was also working in Kenya by then. This upcoming love, coupled with my academic focus on education, international development and african studies made me look for an internship in Kenya. So it happened that I applied with UN habitat and with CARE international. UN habitat refused to give me a chance, while CARE international offered me a position in Somaliland. Not even knowing where exactly Somaliland is situated, I accepted and few month later, I saw myself landing at the bumpy runway of the Hargeisa international Airport. The year that followed I stayed with CARE international, and assisted them in the implementation of an FGM (female genital mutilation) programme. Although it was super interesting (and I am still grateful that I was offered this opportunity), FGM was not quite the topic I really wanted to work on. In July last year, I therefore decided to leave CARE and went back to Kenya, spending some few months with friends.
With a bank account approaching low tide, I started looking for a new assignment, and, regarding myself as a somehow expert for Somaliland, I focused my search on organisations that are active in this part of the region. So it happened that I stepped into the regional office of Caritas Switzerland, and after three months on a consultancy term, I was recently offered a one year contract as Junior associate.
Now, this still doesn't tell you much about my daily life, and in todays message I also dont have plans to go deep into my daily work activities.
Today I will just give you a brief overview over one of the two projects I am working on. Both projects are combined under the Non Formal Education department, which tells already quite a lot about the content of the projects. The first one is concerned with literacy and numeracy for young and adult women (more on this issue another time). The second one builds on the first one and offers vocational skills and knowledge training for graduates from the literacy programme. Combining literacy with skills training is extremely important, since otherwise students see little motivation to complete a literacy course.
Over the past year, 150 girls and women have gotten the opportunity to be trained in tailoring, beauty arts, tie and dye, and secreterial duties. Besides, all of them got inputs on small business management, human rights, health, nutrition, HIV aids and FGM abandonment.
By the time I joined the organisation, the project was about to enter the second phase, which is a on job training for the graduates of the vocational skills training. This meant that we had to identify entrepreneurs who are willing to take interns, and prepare both entrepreneurs and interns for this activity. After a slightly bumpy start up, all girls are now happily testing and proving their skills in beauty saloons, tailor shops, business facilities, etc. The tie and dye students are currently already opening their own businesses and are planning to start production and sale of their products by mid February.
These results are quite encouraging, after all, these girls and women have started from scratch three years ago, being illiterate. Today they are well literate, trained in vocational skills, have a basic knowledge on business management, are trained on life skills, and more important than every thing else, have gained profound confidence.
Below, I added some pictures that I took during a monitoring activity last week
Tie and dye students in their new venue. From February on, they will produce and sell tie and dye products in this venue.
Two of our tailor students in one of the tailor shops that are located in the main market.
One of the secretarial students
These are the beauty arts students at work. It seems that being a beauty expert is quite a trendy profession among Somaliland's young girls
Two other beauty arts students at work 
One of the students showed me her newest Henna design - you dont need to be a somalilander to understand its meaning...
This is one of the youngest students. Young, but active, and visibly enjoying her new profession 
