(ERGO) – Sharmarke Ali Ahmed, 11, is among 10 street children who have started a new life in Garowe, in northern Somalia’s state of Puntland, thanks to the support of the principal of a local primary school.
“I used to sniff glue and sometimes we would sleep on an empty stomach,” Sharmarke told Radio Ergo. “Now I have started studying, I observe my prayers, I get food and a place to sleep!”
Sharmarke was working as a shoe shiner when he decided to join the street boys and make the roadside his bed. When he went back home after a few days sleeping rough, he was beaten by his uncle and ran away from home for good.
He was fortunate to meet Adan Abdirahman Adan, the headteacher at Aden Mashru’ School.
Adan was disturbed to see so many young children living on Garowe’s streets and shared the findings of a survey he conducted with Sahan FM, a local radio station in town. The radio organized a call-in show to raise funds for the children.
Adan said he spent the $300 raised by listeners to buy clothes for the children. But he found he could not stop there, as he told Radio Ergo:
“I made friends with 18 of these children. Every morning I used to visit them where they slept, I even helped them get a haircut. After they trusted me, I asked them, what if I take you home, help you get education and support you – and they all agreed.”
The children come from families that have broken up through parental death, divorce and general grinding poverty.
Adan says he was unable to ignore the children’s plight and has spent $600 on food and support for them in the past two months.
Yussuf Hussein was abandoned by his parents who went to Mogadishu for medical treatment.
“A year ago my parents left me to live with a neighbouring family, but life was too hard so I joined the street children. I have not heard any information from my parents,” he said.
Life in the street was certainly not comfortable.
“When you sleep by the roadside, you get woken up by donkeys and watchmen all the time. But now I sleep peacefully, nobody wakes me up! I am getting an education and going to work,” Yussuf said.
Adan allows the children to work as shoe-shiners in the mornings to earn some pocket money for themselves. But after that, they have to focus on their lessons, including Somali, mathematics and Koranic studies.
Puntland has no formal support system for the care and rehabilitation of street children, so the burden has fallen on well-wishers like Adan.
“My goal is to see no child living in the streets,” he told Radio Ergo.
Adan focuses on children under the age of 15. However, he says he can only care for them for a year, after which time he will enroll then in public schools and the government should then take over responsibility.
