Somalia's Forgotten Children

Children in Somalia wake up every single day feeling weak, hungry, thirsty and often times not sure when their next meal will come. After two decades of war and instability, Somalia has been devastated and the population continues to suffer. Every day, 7-year-old Hassan wakes up in the morning in Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. Hassan has no father, and his 22-year-old mother Halima struggles to raise him without a stable income. Because of his situation, Hassan is forced to leave his mud hut every morning to go to work. He comes home each day tired, hungry and wondering if there is more to life than what he’s experiencing.
Hassan wants to know if the rest of his life will be for survival, he wants to know why he has no father and he wants to know whether he should have hope. Although Hassan is a fictitious character, his situation holds true for thousands of young Somali children as well as many of the estimated 590,000 orphans in Somalia. In fact, just like Hassan, 48% of all Somali boys and 52% of girls aged 5-14 work full-time rather than go to school. With Somalia's struggle with terrorist, tribal and pirate violence it’s no surprise why Somalia has so many orphaned children as well as over 1.3 million internally displaced peoples (IDP’s).