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GECPD - Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development

GALKAYO EDUCATION CENTRE FOR PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT (GECPD)

GECPD was founded in 1999 by a group of women educationists and professionals, as an education and resource centre for women in Galkayo. Its mission is to empower women through education and GECPD seeks to promote and strengthen women’s capacity to seek, defend and advocate for their fundamental rights in all spheres of life. This education centre provides free education for girls and women.

GECPD holds that Somali women have been excluded from benefiting from education, political and economic participation and from important decision making roles and processes; women are relegated to restricted household roles and marginal positions inside their own community. Women are also exposed to physical and emotional abuses and distresses such as FGM and violence. They have no access to basic education, life skills training and to relevant information. Illiteracy is high among women, primary education enrolment is low and dropout rates are high among girls. The opportunities that existed for women before the civil war in education and employment, though few, have been destroyed along with the country.

GECPD maintains that raising children and educating them to become the future citizens and leaders of the society is crucial to the development of any society. As women mainly shoulder the responsibility of raising children, educated women would be empowered to properly prepare their children for the future. For this reason, it is of paramount importance that girls, as future mothers, acquire basic education. However, the reality in Somalia is that parents are more willing to support the schooling of their sons and the result is that the girls who enrol or complete primary education is far lower than the number of boys.

GECPD’s program provides free education for poor, orphaned and displaced girls, both in primary and non-formal education. Primary education is offered to girls between the ages of six and twelve. Non-formal education, also known as ‘second chance education’, is offered to girls from thirteen years and above who have been unable to attend or complete their primary education. Adult women’s integrated literacy programmes are offered in Galkayo and in towns and villages in the North Mudug area. GECPD also supports female teacher training – in many cases, parents are more willing to send their daughters to school if they will be educated by female teachers. The Somali national curriculum, integrated and enriched with the issues most pertinent to girls and women, is used in the primary, non-formal education and teacher training curricula.

Most prominent on GECPD’s agenda is the promotion of girl’s education and women’s literacy. The Centre also directs its efforts to ensuring the eradication of FGM, promoting women’s human rights, empowering women, contributing to the achievement of peace, conflict resolution and environmental protection. At the start, GECPD’s efforts and founders were attacked, as many of these issues were perceived as alien concepts that should have been censored and kept out of the social sphere.

Today, after 4 years of hard work, there have been radical changes in the attitudes towards the activities of the Centre and GECPD has been successful in becoming a fully-fledged education and resource centre for women and youth in Galkayo. With 17 classrooms, skills training, computer and nutrition units, a resource centre, a library capable of holding 100 people, a conference hall with the capacity to hold 80 people and tree planting areas that make the Centre green and environmentally friendly. The Centre is also a focal point for women organizations, female teachers, women professionals and businesswomen.

There are currently 400 girls in the primary school and more than a thousand girls in the non-formal education programme. 2000 women benefit from the literacy programmes, 60 women are included in the teacher-training programme and more than 20 women’s organisations rely on the Centre for services. GECPD has a Management Committee and a membership pool of over 600 supporters and a fund-raising network mechanism in Somalia, Europe, North America, the Gulf States and in Kenya. Additionally, the Centre has liaison officers in Nairobi, Toronto and Milan. The Centre employs more than 30 teachers as well as management and administrative staff.

LOCATION: Galkayo
TELPHONE: 252-543-6457/3338
FAX: 252-543-4501
EMAIL: gecpd@galkom.com
gecpd@golis.net
gecpd19@hotmail.com

	home - what is Peace - GECPD supporters - events - artists - RSVP 128 East 63rd Street (between Park and Lexington Avenues) New York, NY 10021-7303 Please come and join us at the next spectacular event. Where there will be amazing artists, dancers, culinary artists, and talented musicians. Sponsoring: Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development (GECPD) Hawa Aden Mohamed, Somalia Hawa Aden Mohamed has devoted her life to the betterment of Somali women in a country torn apart by civil war. Ms Mohamed is the founder of the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development (GECPD). The centre serves over 500 women and children in many towns and villages with medical care, vocational and income-generating trainings, support for more than 50 orphans, and the only public school for girls in the area. Since its establishment GECPD has worked for the total elimination of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which is widely practiced in Somalia. In the last few years, Ms. Mohamed has received several awards, including: " The 2005 11th Annual Ginetta Sagan Award:, awarded by Amnesty International for outstanding contributions to the human rights of women and children. View Amnesty International Press Release: " The 2004 Marie Claire Top Ten Women of the World award, an award "for the unsung heroines of our times, women who fight against the odds in order to help others." " The 2003 Outstanding Girl-Child and Transparency & Efficiency Award, from Novib at the Somali Civil Society Symposium in Hargeisa. " The 2001 Voices of Courage Award, by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children in New York, for bringing education to refugee and displaced children and women in the midst of conflict. " The 1994 Woman of the Year Award from the Ontario Women's Directorate in Toronto, Canada.
~ Welcome to SensingPeace.com ~ GECPD - Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development GALKAYO EDUCATION CENTRE FOR PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT (GECPD) GECPD was founded in 1999 by a group of women educationists and professionals, as an education and resource centre for women in Galkayo. Its mission is to empower women through education and GECPD seeks to promote and strengthen women’s capacity to seek, defend and advocate for their fundamental rights in all spheres of life. This education centre provides free education for girls and women. GECPD holds that Somali women have been excluded from benefiting from education, political and economic participation and from important decision making roles and processes; women are relegated to restricted household roles and marginal positions inside their own community. Women are also exposed to physical and emotional abuses and distresses such as FGM and violence. They have no access to basic education, life skills training and to relevant information. Illiteracy is high among women, primary education enrolment is low and dropout rates are high among girls. The opportunities that existed for women before the civil war in education and employment, though few, have been destroyed along with the country. GECPD maintains that raising children and educating them to become the future citizens and leaders of the society is crucial to the development of any society. As women mainly shoulder the responsibility of raising children, educated women would be empowered to properly prepare their children for the future. For this reason, it is of paramount importance that girls, as future mothers, acquire basic education. However, the reality in Somalia is that parents are more willing to support the schooling of their sons and the result is that the girls who enrol or complete primary education is far lower than the number of boys. GECPD’s program provides free education for poor, orphaned and displaced girls, both in primary and non-formal education. Primary education is offered to girls between the ages of six and twelve. Non-formal education, also known as ‘second chance education’, is offered to girls from thirteen years and above who have been unable to attend or complete their primary education. Adult women’s integrated literacy programmes are offered in Galkayo and in towns and villages in the North Mudug area. GECPD also supports female teacher training – in many cases, parents are more willing to send their daughters to school if they will be educated by female teachers. The Somali national curriculum, integrated and enriched with the issues most pertinent to girls and women, is used in the primary, non-formal education and teacher training curricula. Most prominent on GECPD’s agenda is the promotion of girl’s education and women’s literacy. The Centre also directs its efforts to ensuring the eradication of FGM, promoting women’s human rights, empowering women, contributing to the achievement of peace, conflict resolution and environmental protection. At the start, GECPD’s efforts and founders were attacked, as many of these issues were perceived as alien concepts that should have been censored and kept out of the social sphere. Today, after 4 years of hard work, there have been radical changes in the attitudes towards the activities of the Centre and GECPD has been successful in becoming a fully-fledged education and resource centre for women and youth in Galkayo. With 17 classrooms, skills training, computer and nutrition units, a resource centre, a library capable of holding 100 people, a conference hall with the capacity to hold 80 people and tree planting areas that make the Centre green and environmentally friendly. The Centre is also a focal point for women organizations, female teachers, women professionals and businesswomen. There are currently 400 girls in the primary school and more than a thousand girls in the non-formal education programme. 2000 women benefit from the literacy programmes, 60 women are included in the teacher-training programme and more than 20 women’s organisations rely on the Centre for services. GECPD has a Management Committee and a membership pool of over 600 supporters and a fund-raising network mechanism in Somalia, Europe, North America, the Gulf States and in Kenya. Additionally, the Centre has liaison officers in Nairobi, Toronto and Milan. The Centre employs more than 30 teachers as well as management and administrative staff. LOCATION: Galkayo TELPHONE: 252-543-6457/3338 FAX: 252-543-4501 EMAIL: gecpd@galkom.com gecpd@golis.net gecpd19@hotmail.com
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