M.Kadir

The long journey to make dreams come true

A man made disaster strikes every day at some one and somewhere; one of those manmade disasters is a war. My fellow Somalis we know all about this.
Our children, women, elders and young are everywhere on the planet as a refugee.
Simply I am one of those who fled from homeland and struggling to survive.
I would like to share my experience of being stranger or refugee.

For me this journey started from Somalia to Djibouti and to Yemen, and from there to the neighbouring country Saudi-Arabia.
After 2 months when I got there (Saudi soil), I have been arrested and jailed for 2 months. In fact I did nothing wrong the only reason that I have been jailed was not having a Saudi residence. It is a very famous problem over there.
I felt mentally desperation, devastation and frustration of being held against my will, at same time I saw that I wasn’t alone a lot of my native fellow Somalis were also being held at same place.
I will never ever forget this experience.
I have been deported to Libya. I never wanted to go there but I didn’t have a choice.
They put me in a plane, which is flying from Jeddah to Cairo and from there to Rabat (Maroko) and her final destination was Tripoli (Libya).
I stayed in Libya for almost 2 years with ups and downs of live.
There was no place to stay (I mean rented house) even if you had money, no work to do.
I was in shock when I saw where the young people were staying and using as a shelter.
At middle of the city Tripoli, you have an old part, which is been deserted, all the houses are collapsed, and you don’t have there any of toilets, electricity and running water.
I met other Somalis who were experiencing the same situation. We decided to do some thing about the situation.
We collected signatures of the deportees and gave those signatures to the UNHCR office Tripoli. They told us that they are going to inform Geneva (head quarter) about the situation.
One week later we have been visited by special envoy who came to estimate the reality on the ground. He couldn’t belief what he saw, refugees living under such a poor conditions.. Immediately he requested the Libyan authority to provide shelter and he ordered the UNHCR office to pay per individual amount of money every month for a living.
It was a tremendous progress when it comes to the daily necessity, because this shelter was meant for the singles and the family’s got the opportunity to rent a house.
I personally worked as translator voluntarily at the new camp.
I did this for almost 7 months. But let me tell you I was very pleased to help my people. And to see the young smiling faces who have finally got a place to stay.
When you do something good belief me, you will get also something good back from the great Allah. The head of UNHCR office appointed me to coordinate the house and to help the administration of monthly payments. At that moment I wasn’t employee but volunteer. After a while I got a chance to work as assistant program officer.
My live transformed from nothing to somebody who can afford to support himself and others.
It was a dream for me which came true. But I didn’t last long because it was a contract for one year.
Despite this I had nothing to complain. I could apply a visa to any embassy and I had the support of the office. I used this opportunity and I came to Europe. My personal success wasn’t something to be proud of but what I did for the community.
There is nothing special from this personal story because thousands fellow Somalis got through the same situation or may be much worst. I am just telling this to ask, shouldn’t we learn something the suffer we all experienced? And How?
Is our country so poor not to able to host it’s own people? The answer is NO. But we are all victims of ignorance. We got independence without any foundation (knowledge) that is why we couldn’t able to enjoy the real independence, which is being free from the aid of the colonial powers. All African and the third world countries are facing the same lot.
My fellow country men don’t forget KNOWLEDGE IS A POWER. We have more than enough natural resources in our homeland but not enough knowledge.
Lets us all focus to educate our self and our children. No any other nation from Africa got the opportunity we Somalis have got right now. There thousands Somali citizens who have the chance to study. Because they got the citizenship of those developed country’s.
May be we can’t change the situation to day but we can change the situation tomorrow.
I HAVE STILL A DREAM.

No comment of what Mr koten said but I wish this will be good lesson to every refugg fellow,

"The sky's limit, let your dreams be your guide!"

thanks a lot.

Hussein Koten Farah Mukhtar Merriam Keyf Ali salah fahima jamal Hamza Mohamed Osman Farduus Omar Mardona Mohamed farrah Hodman Mohamed Nada Sabri Hassan ibrahim Ruqia M. Saed Mr. Abdullahi Mr.Abdihakim Mr.Ali Muna Nacatey Ruqia Seynab Shamso Shukri Yusuf Yusuf M.

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