After Hodan Guled, 32, finished her master’s degree in public health at Emory University, she knew she had to give back.
“I always looked for volunteer opportunities or ways to give back when I was in school, but the current situation [in Somalia] made me want to do something [more],” said Guled, whose native country’s situation has never been far from her mind.
Guled and her family fled Somalia when she was 12, to seek refuge in Nairobi, Kenya. She now lives in Chamblee.
Guled founded S.A. F.E., or Somali and American Fund for Education, in 2008 to help schools and children in the African nation.
Without education, many children of war tend to get tied up in unsafe situations, but Guled noticed that in Somalia, some communities took it upon themselves to improve things. Teachers and parents did the heavy lifting as they tried to fund salaries, or sometimes, even worked for free.
S.A.F.E. supports communities that have already shown a commitment to education.
In 2009, S.A.F.E. raised $10,000 to assist Abaarso Tech, an all-boys boarding school, which received the financial strength to build a girls’ dormitory allowing 14 girls to get enrolled and receive a chance in education.
“We based our model on ‘how can we help you?’” Guled said, as more funding is being appropriated toward facility and infrastructure. “Some of these schools need something as simple as toilets, so we want assist in building a clean, learning-friendly environment for these students.”
“S.A.F.E. donated the money towards us constructing the lab building into a girls’ dormitory,” said Jonathan Starr, managing director at Abaarso Tech in Somalia.
S.A.F.E helped create a competitive advantage for the children and the community. “Our school is training [the children] at a level which competes with any boarding school in the world,” Starr said.
In 2011, S.A.F.E’s goal is to raise $50,000 to help five schools, and the organization has received a $25,000 grant from Coca-Cola Co.
With so many other causes out there, Guled chose one that mimicked the values embedded in her.
“My parents constantly pushed education on us,” said Guled, who also studied at University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill. “We were given the core belief that education is the key to success.”
Guled moved to Huntington, W.Va, in 1993, where her cousin lived, to complete her education.
“I consider myself to be a fortunate Somali refugee,” Guled said. “I got this rare opportunity to come to America. I know not a lot of people in situations such as mine get these kind of chances.”
She’s also getting to go home again.
A public-health analyst in the Atlanta office of RTI International, a North Carolina-based research institute, Guled soon will be going back to Somalia for the first time since arriving in the U.S. in 1993.
“I will be going to train our local partners, two universities, who will be our monitors for the funding we send from here.”
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