NOMADIC AND PASTORALIST GROUPS

Why Nomadic and Pastoralist Groups?

Nomadic and pastoralist groups are amongst some of Somalia’s most marginalised people with little or no access to basic service provisions such as health care and education. Due to their migrating lifestyle as livestock rearing communities, few community members have been able to access any form of education or training. Those that have been able to, often find schooling irrelevant, and sometimes even damaging, as it can disrupt traditional lifestyle and values.

AET's Work

AET is therefore making efforts to address the misconception of nomadic and pastoralist needs by providing relevant, sensitive and accessible education and skills training. By working with nomadic and skills training we make sure that projects are locally initiated, devised and driven. We reach both children and adults who otherwise might never receive an education.

Relevant Education for Nomadic and Pastoralist Communities

AET has been working with nomadic and pastoralist communities since 2006. For those that are considered ‘rootless’ due to the communities continual movement, traditional formal schooling is often irrelevant. Permanent school buildings are of little use, fixed full-time lessons interfere with daily domestic and agricultural duties and also nomadic children’s unique hopes and future aspirations are not addressed within their cultural context.

Flexibility is core to our work with such communities. We train local grass-root organisations to work directly with the communities to identify their own needs. The community selects appropriate teachers, times for classes and lesson content. The communities are encouraged to take full ownership of the project, deciding how they would like the project to be implemented. For example, this may mean that lessons for males and females are held separately to work around their different daily routines. Where possible, community members are selected and trained as teachers. This is essential if education is to be continuous and sustainable as the community migrates.

WHAT WE DO

• Provide literacy and numeracy skills to children and adults
• Vocational skills training as requested by the community on topics such as livestock welfare and upkeep plus livestock rearing and breeding.
• Deliver relevant ‘life skills’ on issues such as communication, health, environment and rights related to pastoralist communities
• Train community members as teachers
• Work through grass roots NGO’s and Community Based Organisations to implement the programme
• Produce learning materials including audio lessons for MP3 and CD players so that learning is not disrupted as a community moves on
• Provide small grants to local community based organisations to trial new approaches to education for nomadic communities
• Produce reading material derived from the wealth of traditional oral stories told by community members

Who Benefits

Region
Working across rural Somalia with 60 different nomadic and pastoralist communities
Somalia has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world, nationally estimated at around 20%. However, for the rural population it is even lower. Between 2006-2008, AET carried out research into 26 nomadic/pastoralist Somali communities and found that there was no education or training provision in any of the communities. Pastoralist communities have suffered further neglect as the focus on the Millennium Development Goal for Universal Basic Education lead to government and non-governmental sectors prioritising mainstream formal primary education. This means pastoralist and nomadic communities have been greatly neglected.

Numbers
Over 5,700 adults and children receiving literacy, numeracy and vocational skills
18 local NGO’s and community based organisations receiving capacity development training

The community’s voice

“I will get the chance to keep my accounts correctly and note my problems and send letters to my loved ones”
Mohammed 18

“If we get an education, that means we are independent. There must be changes and developments within the community and especially for girls.”
Sucdi

“We would like to see the living status of our people improved because of the new literacy, numeracy and vocational skills. It will give our young people marketing skills; then the whole community makes improvements in the life long skills.”
Salah

Achievements so far

We have managed to provide almost 6,000 nomadic and pastoralist people with an education that not only teaches literacy and numeracy but that also supports and encourages their own traditions and lifestyles. The programme is truly owned and run by the communities themselves and is one of the most flexible and supportive approaches to education for nomadic and pastoralist communities to date.

Future Plans

We are about to trial a new project to encourage the nomadic classes to become more self-sustainable. We will provide camels to selected communities for them to then decide
how best they can be used to support the classes and their students. This may mean that the milk produced can be used to feed the students, or the community may decide to sell the products in order to purchase school provisions, or provide a small salary to the teachers.

Programme Background

Between 2006 -2008 AET trained local Somali educationalists, teachers and writers to carry out research with nomadic and pastoralist communities reassessing the needs and provision of education for Somalia’s nomadic population.

Research carried out highlighted a clear need for a change in the way organisations were providing educational opportunities to nomadic communities. The main problem was that programmes did not coincide with nomadic cultures, attitudes and lifestyles; they were too intrusive and disrupted traditional customs and routines. Day time lessons in formal schools took children and young people away from domestic and agricultural duties and boarding schools removed children from nomadic lifestyles completely.

AET asked local educationalists to find solutions to the way education was delivered, the content of lessons and the materials and resources used. We have since been able to provide reading material and lesson resources for the project that support the national curriculum yet are also relevant to nomadic lifestyles.