Brilliance Knows No Borders: November 2018
Abaarso Tenth Graders Inspire Students to Engage with Somaliland’s Challenges
Three Abaarso students have created an ongoing school competition that aims to get their peers thinking about the biggest challenges in their country. The competition, called Somaliland Social Service Project, was the idea of Yahye Hassan, Abdifatah Abdilahi and Mohamed Eid Ismail, all in the tenth grade at Abaarso.
Each week at Abaarso’s assembly, the three students read a prompt that they have written, containing a series of questions about major issues facing Somaliland. Recent topics have included: the prevalence of the drug khat, DP World’s purchase of Somaliland’s port of Berbera, and representation of youth in government. All students are invited to submit answers, which sometimes run up to several pages of detailed analysis. Yahye, Abdifatah and Mohamed Eid then meet over the weekend to read the responses, and choose one that deserves the first-place prize.
“We decided to start this because we want to help solve the common problems in our country,” said the three boys. “We are happy to see that most of the students are very interested and we hope they will continue to participate and spread the word.”
The thoughtfulness of the responses that the competition has received so far are evidence that Abaarso students take seriously their responsibility to use their education to help improve Somaliland society. We are grateful to Yahye, Mohamed Eid and Abdifatah for encouraging students to think about ideas that can move their country forward.
Alumni Spotlight: Sayidcali Ismail Ahmed
Sayidcali Ismail Ahmed arrived at Abaarso as a ninth grader in August 2013. “It was scary,” he said about his first impressions, “but I was happy that I would have a better future than at other schools in Somaliland.” In the five years since he first arrived at Abaarso, Sayidcali has lived up to that, and more. He got past his initial fears and developed into a disciplined student, a citizen of the school and, most recently, one of the best staff members in Abaarso’s history.
Last week, his hard work was rewarded when he was one of a handful of Abaarso graduates to be selected for a Mastercard Foundation scholarship to complete his university studies in the United States. Through the Mastercard program, Sayidcali will apply to Westminster College in Missouri, where he hopes to study political science so that he can contribute to his country one day by being involved in politics. “Because of my time at Abaarso,” he says, “I think of myself as one of the future leaders of Somaliland.”
Having already spent the 2016-17 year in Indiana as an exchange student with the Program for Academic Exchange, Sayidcali knows what to expect when he returns to study in the US. He credits his exchange year, as well as his time at Abaarso, with making him the open-minded person that he is today. More than anything else, though, he says that Abaarso taught him two important lessons: to “always accept if you make a mistake and move forward from it, and to be more independent and listen to what you believe is right.” Politicians everywhere could learn from that.