Capital: Hargeisa
Area: 137,600 km²
Population: 3.5 million
Official language(s): Somali, Arabic and English
Religion(s): Sunni Islam
SOS Children's Villages' activities in the country
In the late 1990s SOS Children’s Villages decided to start operating in Somaliland, a former British protectorate in the north-western part of Somalia, after having run a village and several ancillary SOS facilities in Mogadishu since 1983. Somaliland had declared independence from Somalia in 1991. Three years later the armed conflicts with Somalia could be terminated and since then the country has been enjoying peace and has managed to establish itself as a model of stability and good governance. Up to now Somaliland has not yet been officially recognized, a fact that impeded the access to external aid. Despite the international isolation that has been breaking up very slowly during the past few years, the reconstruction of the country is in full swing and it is hardly affected by the continuous turmoil in the south of Somalia.
In 1999 the president of Somaliland Mohammed Egal and SOS-Kinderdorf International signed an agreement. SOS Children's Villages has participated in the reconstruction in the educational field by renovating a secondary school in Sheikh, a small town 90 km south of the port of Berbera. In 1950 the school had been erected and operated by the British colonial power. It had been one of the most renowned and best schools in British Somaliland and, after gaining independence and merging with Italian Somaliland, throughout Somalia. The SOS Hermann Gmeiner Secondary School in Sheikh serves as a model school again and has been offering education for 240 youths, both day and resident students from all parts of the country.
A considerable part of the medical and social infrastructure that was destroyed in the armed conflicts between 1980 and 1994 still has to be rebuilt. SOS Children’s Villages decided to further commit itself in Somaliland and to help abandoned children and the needy population in the capital city Hargeisa. In December 2006 construction of the first SOS Children’s Village, a kindergarten and a social centre started. At present there is one SOS Hermann Gmeiner School and one SOS Mother Training Centre in Somaliland.
Contact:
SOS Children's Villages Somaliland (associated)
PO Box 511
c/o Regional Office for East Africa
00606 Nairobi
Kenya
Tel: +254-20-782104
Fax: +254-20-789744