A Taste of Africa is a blog I have been following for a month or so.  It is the journal of a Philipino development worker in Somaliland.  From what I can gather, she works with youth groups who are developing leadership skills necessary for democratic civic institution building. I really enjoyed this entry in which she describes their efforts to be represented at an international conference.

Rewarding hard work

They didn’t think they could make it. The confirmation for their participation came very late, in two weeks time they had to raise $ 1,100 or else Somaliland cannot be represented in the conference.

It will be their first time to attend an international conference; it will be their first time to get out of Somaliland. “Mohamed Baroud has to go, he will have to speak for Somaliland youth” Khadra said. “But you don’t have money” I said “We will go to different people, we will convince them to give us money” Khadra added.

They persisted. They wrote letters of solicitation and distributed it to various organizations. They divided the tasks, 1 group went to a different set of businessmen another group went to the international organizations.

Majority of the International agencies closed their doors; there wasn’t much time to release money they were told. They didn’t lose heart. They proceeded and knocked on the doors of businessmen, traders and friends. They got small contributions from individuals it totalled to $600. They were thankful and continued to walk from one office to another, spent day and night, walking and talking to people. With 2 days to go they still need to raise $500. They were promised to return the next day, they did, they were asked to wait and they did...

 Want to know what happens? Read here.

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