Soc 355: Minority Group Relations

Somalia Presentation Paper When I walked into the presentation tonight I had no idea what to expect. I thought for a second it might be another presentation that just simply bores the audience with listing statistics of bullies in schools or dealing with discrimination that I would never come across or face. It was not though; the presentation was a real experience. In a sense, it could have been too real. Somalia is a country that is located on the far east of Africa. This country is in a region known as the “Horn of Africa”. Somalia is in the center of what is said to be the worst drought in Africa in over 60 years. With most of the country side being couple empty and home to absolutely nothing, the region has been officially declared as one of the few famines areas in world history. There are currently over 10 million men, women and children that are desperate need of food and water. Over 600,000 children are in despair as their country fights poverty, drought, and civil war. There is no more grass in the fields. Farms are no longer filled with animals. There is no longer food for parents to provide to their children. There is no more water in wells. The countryside people are forced to abandon their homes, their cities, and their farms to make the treacherous voyage towards a refugee camp. They leave because they have absolutely nothing left. They leave on a path on foot that is faced with dangerous obstacles of facing wild dangerous animals and desperate criminals. Refugee camps like the one near the Somali border called Dadaab are overcrowded and low on resources. This camp alone has over 380,000 people who are desperate for any kind of help they can receive. It is sad to say that over 80% of these refugee camps are women and children. This region is known to most as the “Valley or Desert of the Death”. Most these numbers of desperate humans are children. Over 600,000 children are in need of serious and significant aid. Watching the images and listening to the staggering details and truth of this brutal reality was a very obscure feeling. After seeing the images of a thirteen year old boy whose body was nothing but bones wrapped in flesh was indeed scaring in a way, but even more disheartening. I felt small yet felt frustrated and angered at the same time. It made me mad but it made me helpless. The feeling of seeing a starving mother almost empty at the reality of not being able to help her poor beyond malnourish child is almost indescribable. The group at the presentation was attempting to raise awareness to the American public of this serious crisis going on in Somalia (also in parts of Ethiopia and Kenya). “I-am-a-star” had speakers from Minnesota students, to doctors that just came back from volunteering in Somalia, to educate the room on the current global famine happening in East Africa. The program is an organization that uses anything from performers to fundraisers in an attempt to raise awareness and aid to Somalia. The program aims to doing the basic things that will help the country including providing hospital beds, mosquito nets to prevent disease, training doctors, and other essentials that will prevent illness. Aiming at rebuilding the very few hospitals, providing water, and sanitization are just the fundamentals of the list. I-am-a-star program is attempting to make more people aware to help support this global crisis. The group targets college people because the youth are the only people that can make change and can be the voices of the starving Somali children. The violence, destitution, and hunger that affects millions and millions in Somali needs to be informed to the public. It seems at this point that nobody is paying attention.