Somali Community Development Network

Somali communities are partnering with their own entrepreneurs to incubate sustainable, socially-beneficial enterprises. These entrepreneurs are talented but have to leave for opportunity or face stagnance at home. Their community wants to thrive, together. With low-cost technology, learners build skills to address shared needs. A community council guides and seed-funds enterprise teams building new businesses with mutual benefit.

Har Har, a remote village, launched only months ago. They identified priorities, enrolled learners, and launched enterprises, a poultry farm and a tailor. Then COVID-19 struck. So the council accepted a Health Clinic proposal, raising funds for equipment, including outfitting a vehicle as an ambulance and broadcasting public health information. The tailor is selling masks. An internet enterprise is connecting the community with each other and to global resources. Meanwhile, enrollment in learning rose. The village is protecting itself, catalyzing economic recovery, and strengthening community bonds, despite being isolated and impoverished.

After years of conflict, Somalia is one of the most impoverished places on earth, and most Somali communities are isolated from opportunities for personal and economic growth. Somalia is also home to over 3.5 million refugees and internally displaced people (IDP’s). Millions live with little to no income, often in make-shift housing, without clean water, electricity, formal education, or healthcare. They are on their own. 

Even those with access to education do not have significant economies to join after leaving school. They are forced into dangerous migrations for work, to find purpose with paramilitary groups, or stagnance at home. Outdated, one-size fits all modes of education do not cultivate individual talents and local solutions. The chaotic and impersonal global economy does not support Somali communities. 

Somalia’s slow transition to peace and growth is further imperiled by COVID-19. While government restrictions on travel, shipping, and social gatherings are needed to prevent the virus from devastating Somalia, they present urgent health and economic challenges, especially for those living in remote communities. Isolated from formal healthcare and significant economies, they have an urgent need to learn how to protect themselves and each other and to join together to create local opportunities.

OLE pairs personalized learning technology with community empowerment. Communities 1) identify their needs, 2) access learning customized to their needs, and 3) create enterprises to address their needs. In the process they connect with each other and other communities to drive national change. 

OLE’s Planet technology delivers the learning content that addresses community priorities, connects learning and enterprise teams, and maintains transparency for the community. Planet includes a web application, mobile app, portable Raspberry Pi server, and tablets. University partners create learning content in the app. In the village of Har Har’s first year, 77 villagers received health and business certificates from Mogadishu University. 

With guidance and support from the multi-generational, gender-balanced community council, many learners launch enterprises to solve community problems. In Har Har, a new chicken farm is selling eggs, a women’s tailor shop began by sewing COVID-19 masks, and a health team is traveling around Har Har, with a speaker on their car, broadcasting instructions on how to protect oneself from the virus. 

The technology generates evidence of personal, local, and national change. Data is anonymized and aggregated to document and demonstrate regional and national progress. It also contains survey tools.

The Somali Community Development Network affects change through entire communities. Every person needs purpose, agency, and connection to thrive. That is not possible without a community that has transparency, distributed power, and mutual accountability. The combination of personalized learning and community empowerment creates those conditions. 

The most vulnerable benefit significantly. Girls and women become community and enterprise leaders. Infants and their parents benefit from a supportive, learning, and growing community. Elders find connection in purpose through lifelong learning and passing on of knowledge. 

OLE estimates 12,000 people benefit per community. Our approach to learning relies on teams and mentorship, which enables the program to grow to neighboring communities, as communities become able to coach each other. With this model and a powerful partner in-country, Mogadishu University, we can scale to 100 communities, benefiting 1M people and transforming a large economy. 

Participants articulate and pursue their own goals. In every aspect of the program and at every moment of implementation, we ask ourselves who has the power. The answer should always be the community. We provide resources and guidance. The community makes the decisions. 

The Somali Community Development Network is specifically for helping marginalized communities, those isolated from opportunities, create good jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves. By tailoring learning to the needs of the community and connecting entrepreneurship to the bonds of community, a community takes charge of its own future. Everyone can thrive personally, socially, and economically. 

What we have seen in 2020 is how this model also enables a community to weather economic shocks and thrive amidst a crisis. Community needs become community opportunities, such as a tailor enterprise creating masks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMLCcCLrlY

Traditional pathways to opportunity fail billions of people, are massively expensive, and leave us isolated. The Community Development Network creates opportunity at a cost of a few dollars per person, while connecting us to each other. 

Formal education systems are expensive and sluggish. To be viable, the treat students impersonally. They cannot service  individual needs or adjust to changing economies. Students are left unfulfilled and unprepared. 

Many well-intentioned programs seek to improve learning in impoverished communities by providing more - more books, more teacher trainings, more computers. But success of such programs is defined by a few exceptional cases in which someone rises out of their circumstances.

While the internet allows for on-demand access to resources, access is not a solution. Numerous products exist for accessing educational content of all kinds. But the learner is left to browse and search on her own to hopefully find good opportunities, one person in a massive global economy. 

OLE uses technology as an enabler of personalized learning while marrying it to the strengths of the community. Instead of an impersonal school system aimed at creating individual opportunity, the Community Development Network uses personalized learning to create opportunities for the common good. In the end, it can add up to far greater national change. It takes $18,300 to set up a community with the equipment to operate the program and only $1,100 to staff each year. Amortized over five years, the program costs $3.16 per beneficiary.

OLE’s community development program uses hardware to create access in remote locations and software designed to enable personalized learning while connecting the learner to their community, nation, and the world.

The hardware we use is the Raspberry Pi, an inexpensive and portable server that creates an intranet cloud with a range of about 100 yards. The servers deliver OLE’s learning applications and third-party learning tools. 

OLE’s Planet application (Personal Learning in Achieved with Network Empowered Teams) is available via the web or as a mobile app, known as MyPlanet, for Android devices. It can be downloaded from one of OLE’s Raspberry Pi servers or from the Google Play store. It is built with open source frameworks and the code base remains open source for anyone to innovate. 

The program provides tablets for learners to share to use MyPlanet and solar panels to power the server and charge the tablets. 

The Raspberry Pi is a widely used and accepted technology, supported by a large open-source community and the Raspberry Pi Foundation: https://www.raspberrypi.org/

Anyone can create an account and peruse this demonstration version of Planet: https://planet.somalia.ole.org/eng/login

The code for Planet (the web version) and MyPlanet (the mobile app) are available on GitHub: 

https://open-learning-exchange.github.io/#!index.md

https://github.com/open-learning-exchange

MyPlanet is available in the Google Play Store here: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.ole.planet.myplanet 

(It only works for when synced to a community’s Planet server, however, not for the general public.)

OLE has a comprehensive theory of change, based on years in multiple continents building local programs into national solutions. We start with helping communities (1) organize themselves for system changes and, (2) listen to their members and (3) identify their strengths, their weaknesses and their most important changes. Using OLE’s Planet learning system they (4) develop the essential knowledge and skills needed to solve their problems. Enterprise Teams (5) demonstrate community solutions and, (6) document continuously their process with Planet. (7) Persuasion is the most challenging step, requiring skill, persistence and many cups of tea. It is the essential “fulcrum” for scaling and funding that enables the Network approach to be sustained in communities throughout an entire nation. The explicit goal, established by the Somali National Community Development Council, is to provide documentation and stories that are sufficiently persuasive for the federal government to establish the Network as a permanent quango (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organization). After (8) reflecting and (9) sharing, the cycle continues, with no end. Through these steps, the Community Development Network is demonstrating and documenting a scalable and sustainable strategy enabling humans to thrive in their communities. 

Communities and Total Beneficiaries

This program benefits entire communities with economic development. There is one pilot community in Somali. We project reaching 6 one year from now and 100 in 5 years. 

An estimated 12,000 people benefit from the Somali Community Development Network so far. In one year it will be approximately 72,000. We project approximately 1.2 million of all ages and genders will benefit from this program through 2025. 

Learners

After one year in the pilot village, 117 learners are enrolled. We project that the program can support 200 learners at a time. In one year, we estimate 1200 active learners and in five years, 200,000.

Enterprises Teams

There are four new enterprises in our pilot village, with approximately 6 people on each team on average, meaning 6 newly employed people. While it is difficult to project where the economic growth of each community can end, we conservatively estimate 10 enterprises per community per 5 year period. We project 18 enterprises in 6 communities in one year, where the sixth community has not had time to start enterprises yet, and therefore 108 team members. We project nearing 600 enterprises and 3600 team members after 5 more years of the program, as we near 100 communities.

Our goal is to scale to 100 communities after 5 years. We will use a hub and spoke model. Regional hub universities help launch each community’s program, with support from communities already in motion. The communities become self-sustaining as new enterprises produce income and build a local economy. In under a year, Har Har has attracted more outside investment to the community than its startup costs. The community council manages and invests the funding so that it is used on socially-beneficial projects that it also finds to be sustainable.  

Over the first 5-7 years of growth, the program will be funded through a combination of private contributions and funding from the international community. Ultimately the program will transition to public funding, with local, regional, and national support. Public funding is the only way to make sure the program can have long-term stability and impact. It takes time, however, to persuade government to get behind innovations.

Solve funding will provide an essential bridge from an extremely promising pilot to having the proof points to show the program can scale. We will show how one hub university can support ten communities to launch and how those communities can become self-sufficient in managing the program, with each other’s help. At the same time, we will show how OLE can scale its own staff in establishing another hub university and guiding it to launch communities. We will get to the point of having shown that the program will thrive and can grow nation-wide.  

Underdeveloped communications and travel infrastructure create logistical barriers to stay in sync and deliver equipment. Travel restrictions related to the pandemic have made this more difficult. 

Cultural differences are also a challenge. The work week in Somalia is Saturday to Wednesday. The country nearly comes to a halt during Ramadan.

Gathering government support for the program to provide long-term stability and growth will also require a major effort. The Somali government has its hands full, with a sluggish economy and persistent violence and unrest. 

There are big challenges when scaling in an unstable and underdeveloped landscape. Those challenges are opportunities, though, in that the impact of any progress we make is outsized. 

Our greatest asset is the participants. In the pilot, we have seen many villagers quickly engage in creating their own life pathways that are powerful, meaningful, and connected with others. The village also leaped into action during the pandemic, using its learning resources and enterprises to respond to the crisis, sewing masks and distributing public health information. And we have remained in close contact with our partners and participants during the pandemic. Each remains committed to continuing, and the program has progressed despite the challenges. 

Our approach to challenging cultural differences is to remember we are not in charge. OLE makes every possible effort to adapt to our partners’ ways of working, and these differences consistently remind us that our highest use is to empower our partners and participants, rather than manage them. 

Somalia is a relatively new state, but as a relatively young government, Somalia is eager to innovate and is not burdened with the inertia that undermines innovation in places with more established modus operandi.  

Our current plan with Mogadishu University projects launching 100 Community Development Centers by 2026. This grant can be the segue for OLE and its university partners to prove how to rapidly scale to many more communities the successes that the pilot demonstrated. This grant can also enable us to learn more about how to help each community customize this program to meet its own needs and how to grow a strong network of mutually supportive communities.  

OLE’s full-time staff: 3

OLE’s full-time contractors (domestic and international): 3 

Somali partners’ full-time staff: 12

Since its founding in 2007, OLE and our partners have deployed versions of Planet in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Beginning in 2015, Somali refugees in three UNHCR Camps in Dadaab, Kenya have used Planet to become more self-sufficient through “Ready to Return” programs. Now OLE is providing the Somali Community Development Network with this innovative learning technology and helping Somalis develop the skills needed for communities to take charge of their own needs. 

OLE’s software developers have expertise in internet and intranet systems and the connections between them, web applications, Android apps, and technology operations. They have specialized in using the pocket-sized server, Raspberry Pi, as a low-cost tool to create community-based intranet clouds.  

OLE has been selected by the World Bank as a member of its Solutions for Youth Employment (S4YE) and by Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s SOLVE program for its excellence in helping youth and young adults prepare themselves for the work of their future.   

OLE’s CEO, Mike Perez, spent 10 years in the non-profit sector, leading projects large and small. Before joining OLE, he was COO of a startup managing grants ranging from $150k to $4M.

Mike works daily with OLE’s founder and Chair, Richard Rowe. Dr. Rowe was Associate Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has managed grant-funded organizations for decades, including OLE for its first 13 years, and was President of One Laptop Per Child. He has also been Director of Test Development and Research for the West African Examinations Council.

Mogadishu University is OLE’s primary partner in Somalia. Our partnership envisions establishing a national network of at least 100 Community Development Centers. The University convened a national Community Development Council whose mission is to persuade the government to support the Network with public funds. 

MU engaged Galkayo University as the first of ten hubs to serve a cluster of nearby communities.  GU is supporting Har Har. MU is developing partnerships with other universities to serve as hubs nationwide.

Mogadishu University was  founded in 1997 and is experienced with managing the operations and public relations of major national programs. Its relationships include the World Bank, Islamic Development Bank, UNDP, ILO, Somali Stability Fund (SSF), USAID, NRC, Mercy Corps/USA, Muslim Aid – UK, Emirates Red Crescent, World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), and Save the Children. The University’s national partners include the federal ministries of Finance, Justice, Planning and International Cooperation, Women and Development Human Rights, Education, and Labor and Social Affairs.

Abdirahman Diiriye is Dean of the Somali Community Development Network. Dirie is a business development manager with experience working for national institutions implementing new technologies. He is responsible for planning and managing the program in Somalia

OLE’s leadership team interacts twice weekly with Dirie, collaborating on logistics, fundraising, and long-term planning. OLE’s tech team meets twice weekly with program staff at the universities to review usage analytics, train on new features, and solve technical challenges.

OLE’s value proposition is digital learning that overcomes the barriers of poor infrastructure and underdeveloped educational systems to help learners thrive and communities prosper. Participants are communities that want to grow together personally, socially, and economically, but they have been left behind by the global economy, inequality, and politics. They want to take charge of their future and be a part of big change.

Our program is, at first, free for participants. Participating communities, however, are expected to ultimately take ownership of the operation of the program, funds, and the technology. We strive to make our presence obsolete. Communities that choose to adopt the approach commit substantial human and material resources. The Network provides the framework, and a gender-balanced process, for informed, inclusive decision-making that engages an entire community. They identify their problems and opportunities and create ways to address them.

We look for national partners that are “irrationally committed” to affecting big change. Our partners commit to the long-term growth of the program in their country and to put in the strategic, operational, and political effort required to make it grow nationwide and eventually become publicly funded. 

OLE is a 501(c)(3). Our revenue comes from a combination of grants and unrestricted contributions from foundations and individuals.

Over the next 5-7 years of growth, the program will be funded through a combination of private contributions and funding from the international community. Ultimately the program will transition to public funding, with local, regional, and national support. Public funding is the only way to make sure the program can have long-term stability and impact. It takes time, however, to persuade government to get behind innovations.

Solve funding can provide an essential bridge from an extremely promising pilot to having the proof points to show the program can scale. We will show how one hub university can support ten communities to launch and how those communities can become self-sufficient in managing the program, with each other’s help. At the same time, we will show how OLE can scale its own staff in establishing another hub university and guiding it to launch communities. We will get to the point of having shown that the program will thrive and can grow nation-wide.  

The Solve network can help us strengthen our community of advisers and funders. In particular, we plan to engage in a Board development effort later this year.

OLE has demonstrated and documented initial programmatic success in Somalia. We need to strengthen the program’s long-term prospects with funding. Board members and advisers with the right network of expertise and capital will be a key component of that effort. 

Har Har, our pilot community in Somalia, is home to about 12,000, approximately half of which are refugees and internally displaced people (IDPs). Somalia is home to over 3.5 million refugees and IDPs. Millions live with little to no income, often in make-shift housing, without clean water, electricity, formal education, or healthcare. They are talented and motivated but have little opportunity, if any.  

The Somali Community Development Network, a partnership between Open Learning Exchange and Mogadishu University offers digital learning opportunities and a community empowerment model that helps refugees and IDPs develop local entrepreneurial opportunities that provide purpose and prosperity. Participation is open to everyone regardless of age and formal-education level. Refugees and IDPs of all ages and genders learn and work in teams with the rest of the community where they live. 

Since its founding in 2007, OLE and our partners have deployed versions of the program in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Beginning in 2015, Somali refugees in three UNHCR Camps in Dadaab, Kenya have used it to become more self-sufficient through “Ready to Return” programs. These UNHCR Camps will eventually become connected to the Somali Community Development Network to provide an information and economic bridge to return to Somalia.  

The Somali Community Development Network takes an unbending approach toward gender equality. Every participating community must have a gender-balanced Community Council and gender-balanced learning teams. While specific teams and enterprises can be focused on the needs of one gender, those bodies that make decisions that affect the whole community must be balanced by gender and must include gender-balanced youth and elders as voting members.  

The results have also benefitted women and girls. In the Har Har community, the first two enterprises that received seed funding from the Har Har Community Development Centers, a chicken farm and a tailor shop, are both led by women. Over 50% of Har Har’s learners are women and girls studying English, health, and business. 

The Somali Community Development Network is specifically for helping marginalized communities, those isolated and excluded from opportunities, create good jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities for themselves. By tailoring learning to the needs of the community and connecting entrepreneurship to the bonds of community, a community takes charge of its own future. Everyone can thrive personally, socially, and economically.