Young Somalis Step in Where Government Fails

Newyork Times  She had just finished battling the floods, and then the bomb went off. For a month of 10-hour days, Dr. Amina Abdulkadir Isack, 27, tended to anemic mothers, children with malaria and pregnant women as a volunteer in central Somalia, where record floods had left thousands of people in dire need of help the government could scarcely provide. But only days after she came home, on a hot Mogadishu morning in late December, terrorists detonated an explosives-laden truck in a busy intersection, killing 82 people and injuring nearly 150, including university students studying to become health specialists and doctors like her. Dr. Isack sprang right back into action, helping a youth-led crisis response team of volunteers who tracked the victims, called their families, collected donations and performed many services the government was too overwhelmed to manage on its own. “The youth are the ones who build nations,” Dr. Isack said. “We have to rely on ourselves.” Much like the floods before it, the attack in Mogadishu, the deadliest in Somalia in more than two years, underscored the feeble emergency response in a nation that is no stranger to natural and man-made disasters. The Somali government struggles to provide basic public services like health care and education, let alone a comprehensive response to emergencies. Yet in the face of the country’s mounting challenges — from a changing climate to the indiscriminate violence of terrorism — young Somalis are increasingly getting organized and bootstrapping their way out of crises, rather than waiting on help from their government or its foreign backers. Government officials say they do respond to the country’s emergencies, including establishing a national committee to aid the victims of the Dec. 28 attack. Turkey and Qatar airlifted dozens of the badly injured. But many youth activists in Somalia say that the response from the authorities is often tardy or inadequate, making it all the more essential for citizens like them to jump in and help fill the gaps.  Somalia has experienced one degree or another of chaos for almost three decades, bedeviled first by clan infighting and then by violent extremism. But through it all, Somalis have found ways to not only establish thriving businesses, but also take on core state services like building roads and providing health care and education.