IMAGINE THAT, a few years from now Somalia is still plagued in turmoil. Imagine a country that can’t host its citizens, a government rendered inept by qabil and musuqmaasuq, an entire generation growing up in self-segregated clan enclaves, talented kids with no means for education. In such a bleak, but a plausible situation, ask yourself in honesty, what have I done to avoid such a dismal outlook for Somalia?

• Bar ama Baro reaches to and encourages students from Mogadishu University, University of Hargeisa, Puntland State University, and Amoud University to apply for Bar ama Baro scholarship.
• Bar ama Baro appeals to conscious individuals across the globe mostly from the Somali Diaspora to sponsor students for only one semester.
• Bar ama Baro allows a donor group or an individual to sponsor a student randomly through Bar ama Baro website, a computer generated lottery system.
• Bar ama Baro connects the student, the donor group, and the hosting university where the donors pay directly to the student/university where the scholarship recipient is attending.
• Bar ama Baro does not receive, hold, or manage any fund locally, it simply facilitates the link between students, and sponsoring groups.

To this date, Bar ama Baro sponsored five students across Somalia, in Hargeisa, Garowe, Mogadishu, and Borama. More importantly, life time friendship and bond have been formed among the scholarship recipients as they have been connected through Bar ama Baro. Now it is your time to step up, Bar ama Baro gives you all the tools you need. Envision this powerful scenario, you and five or six of your friends or family members sit, drink shah and talk about the miseries that have overtaken our nation, you discuss ways to make a positive change at an individual level! I say, what about getting to know a Somali student that probably you would not have met in Mogadishu, Garowe, Hargeisa, or Borama, nurture him/her, ask them about their life, their families and friends, and the conditions of where they live and study. Create a life-time bond with an upcoming, young and bright Somali student who is studying in one of the harshest environments. This is Bar ama Baro, a movement that creates an inspiring experience through the eyes of many involved including you and Somali students.

In closing, I would like to make a personal appeal. If you were dejected by the current clannish and partisan affairs in Somalia, if you felt indebted to Somalia, if you felt your country was hijacked by the few cruel men, if you yearned for a way to make a positive change in a neutral platform, then Bar ama Baro is your resource and partner. Approach your friends, and family members with the noble idea of reaching to a Somali student and sponsoring for only one semester. Bar ama Baro gives you all the tools you need; a web tool to select a Somali student randomly, his university enrollment information, picture, and contact information for the administrators at the University where he/she is studying, and you make your pledge directly to the student/university, Bar ama Baro does not get involved in managing any scholarship money. As I am writing this introduction, there are 59 deserving students in Bar ama Baro website waiting to be sponsored, and it only takes about 200 US dollars to sponsor a student for a semester in the participating Somali universities.

If this message resonated with you, if the notion of reaching across qabil is important to you, if you believe in the role of education in making Somalia a better place, if you feel responsible for a student in Garowe, Mogadishu, Hargeisa, Borama, and across Somalia, please make a difference, and support Bar ama Baro by going to www.baramabaro.us or by contacting Bar ama Baro Founder directly.     

Mohamed Shamun Omar
Bar ama Baro Founder
E-Mail: Mohamed_omar@harvard.edu  

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* Bar ama Baro   By Bar ama Baro Foundation