WOMEN REBUILDING SOMALIA (UN Radio)
Somalia survived a devastating civil war in the early Nineties that killed an estimated 300 thousand civilians, including many children. Some 4 and a half million people were threatened by disease and starvation. All institutions of governance and more than half of the country's basic infrastructure disintegrated. Since then the women of Somalia have been working hard to rebuild their country. I recently spoke to FATIMA JIBRELL, the managing Director of Horn Relief, and coordinator of Resource Management Somalia network -- a country-wide organization, that works with the nomadic farmers, or pastoralists, to help them preserve the environment.

JIBRELL: Pastoralists follow rain and pasture and in Somalia they have goats, camels, sheep and cattle, mostly. And they move from one camping area to the other and sit there as long as they can get enough grazing and water for their livestock. And as soon as that dwindles, they move to another spot with better pasture. And in Somalia it is probably the most respected lifestyle, because most Somalis have either come from that kind of life, or still lead that life. And it is sustainable if it is respected and the grasslands and the water and the eco-system is respected. But because urbanization infringes on it, it is also threatened.

Bissera: What is Women's role in these kinds of communities?

JIBRELL: The women are the backbone of this kind of life. They take care of the livestock. They milk. They take care of the children. 90 percent of the work is done by women.

Bissera: What about the men?

JIBRELL: When times are tough, they usually go for water and surveying where is the best land to settle, things like that. But the day-to-day work is mostly done by women and children.

Bissera: Can you describe a project?

JIBRELL: One simple one is greatly used. Somalia is on this horn, where the Indian ocean and Red sea run beside, and its like a drainage. The rainfall just takes the soil and takes it to the sea. And the natural forests are dwindling. So what we do is we train pastoralists to follow the flow of water, rainfall water and put very simple rock dams – stones built – something that an 8-year-old could do, and it just reduces the water velocity. You do it right at the start of the rain water, before it becomes swift going water and we just keep doing that one after the other, and it keeps that area damp for seven days or more, eventually special acacia plants mushroom and then it becomes a defense system and blocks the water flow and you don’t need the rock dams anymore, so these are the ways the pastoralists are dealing with to revive more forests and more range land. Although, unfortunately, there is a livestock ban by the Gulf countries, and there is more livestock available, while the Gulf countries are willing, or interested to buy charcoal from Somalia, where the people who could not sell livestock are turning to the forests, limited forests, to burn it and turn it into charcoal and sell it to the Gulf countries. And that’s weakening the environment. It’s a vicious cycle, and we don’t know how to stop that, because the people have no other way of surviving. Humanity is not really respected if one country, that seems to be stronger economically and is a neighbor to Somalia, plus it claims to be a very ethical and Muslim country chokes the people of Somalia, who don’t have a government, by declaring their livestock having Rift valley fever, which is not true, and has not been proven, just because it is stronger, and can block it – they have blocked us, blocked Somalia’s economy – devastated it. At the same time they want to buy our forests, so that’s deliberately inhumane thing to do, and I would like concerned human beings to address that and tell the Saudis and the Gulf countries to stop what they’re doing to the poor Somalis.

Bissera: ARE WOMEN’S VOICES BEING HEARD IN SOMALIA NOW?

JIBRELL: It is more heard than before. There are so many women-run NGOs that are effective and strong. There are some women participating in different administrations or parliaments. Puntland has five women in its 100 something parliamentarians circle. In Mogadishu -- the new government -- they have about 25 women in the parliament. You could say it’s tokenism but at the same time, I’m sure some of them come out as strong activists.

Bissera: I’D LIKE TO ASK YOUR OPINION ON THE RECENT SECURITY COUNCIL MEETING, WHICH CALLED FOR WOMEN’S PARTICIPATION IN PEACEMAKING AND PEACE-BUILDING. HOW DO YOU SEE THAT -- WILL IT BE IMPLEMENTED?

JIBRELL: I would like to welcome that, but unfortunately I don’t see it from the UN offices for Somalia in Nairobi. I don’t see them taking it seriously. I will take the voice of the UN seriously – when I see it from the representation for Somalia inside the field.

Bissera: ARE YOU INVOLVED WITH ANY EFFORTS TO TEACH SOMALIA’S YOUTH ABOUT PEACE?

JIBRELL: Yes. Horn Relief, which is my organization, is very much involved in training youth leadership. It is funded by diaspora, by another land’s organization called Eastern Sanaag. It is funded by Oxfam Canada and many individuals, so we are doing it to the best of our ability, but it’s not enough yet.

Bissera: WHAT KINDS OF ACTIVITIES DO YOU HAVE?

JIBRELL: We have schools, literacy training, helping youth to get education up to secondary in a condensed curriculum, training them in natural resource management, giving them holistic perspective of life, governance, leadership. Lately our center in a village called Buran in Eastern Sanaag. Our youth have been trained in solar lighting and they have put up solar lighting system to the whole compound. And now if we get funding, which is very difficult, we would like to engage the best youth in these skills to do solar lighting privately and earn from it and also hire others and train others. So these are initiatives, but we are very slow in getting the funds that we need. Other than that we would have by now improved the lives of many pastoral villagers, and the environment, but we will go slow and we will get there some day.

Bissera: HOW MANY YOUNG PEOPLE DO YOU THINK YOU HAVE REACHED THROUGH THESE ACTIVITIES?

JIBRELL: The ones in school now are 70 students, who are full-time and then we have 62 students, who are part-time. We have also adopted about 6 other villages nearby, where we go and give them community learning sessions. So then these ones, who learn go to the pastoral areas and teach again and again. And I don’t know – we haven’t done a study. But it must have reached many parts. At the same time the resource management Somalia network teams are all over Somalia and they’re doing the same thing, so as far as pastoralists are concerned, we are reaching big numbers, but still a lot to cover.

That was Fatima Jibrell of Horn Relief. In November the United Nations agencies launched an appeal for over 100 million US dollars in aid to Somalia. The money is to meet the humanitarian needs of vulnerable Somali communities, fund ongoing programmes assisting 'Somaliland' and 'Puntland' in northern Somalia and support the emerging Transitional National Government. In line with its priority theme, “Women in War”, the consolidated interagency appeals strategy of the UN for 2001, notes that as women assume a more important role in Somali society, they will be key actors in fostering positive change and should be supported in their efforts to assist recovery and reconciliation in Somalia.