Somali Youth Livelihood program popularly known as Shaqodoon held a graduation ceremony at Puntland state university on Wednesday 20thApril 2011.Somali Youth Livelihood program (Shaqodoon) is among one of the projects of KAALO Relief and Development, which started early 2010. The project involved training of 190 students for a period of five months and a placement of two months after training.
The project started on May 2010 and collapsed on March 2011. It was divided into three phases, the Phase I, Phase II and Phase III. The first phase which was three month in time was the preparation stage. This stage was mainly concerned with the registration and selection of the 190 students that the project was meant to train and place. The second phase which made up of five months involved the training of the 190 students in both theory and practical. This was between August and December. After training, comes the last but not the least phase which is known by Phase III or the last stage. This stage was the placement stage whereby KAALO successfully managed to place 80% of the students trained to different organizations be it private or Public.
Students of Auto mechanics and Electrical Installations trained form the premises of Nugal Electric Company which was a sub-partner of KAALO Relief and Development organization.
Students of Level one were provided with $30 dollars per month for motivation purpose while students of Level II and III were each given $4 after every month for transportation. Upon the completion of the training students were provided with certificate of course completion.
The ceremony started at 9:00 in the morning whereby some invited guests addressed the crowd that composed of the graduating students, trainers, and some other invited individuals. The ceremony was opened with a Quranic verse and thereafter all the participants including the students were welcome.
The project manager took the floor and briefed the participants on the project, among the things he provided more clarifications were the project timeframe, number of students trained, placed and employed.
The project manager invited KAALO executive Director and PSU President to congratulate the graduating students at the same time encourage them to pursue more knowledge and hence achieve in life. The executive director in turn invited the guest of honor the Minister of Commerce and industry to take the floor and give motivational speech to the students.
Before the minister and other high ranking delegates spoke, some students stood before the mass and talked about their feeling towards the ceremony and the long journey of training, many students were heard appreciating KAALO, PSU and EDC the implementing and supporting organizations respectively. Some students praised the executive Director of KAALO and PSU president, Mohamoud Sheikh Haid calling him by names such as “The father of Education” “The father of the Youth” and many other motivational words.
Eventually some students were issued with certificates, due to time the rest were told to collect their certificates from PSU registrar’s office.
The ceremony ended cheerfully and joyfully around 12:00pm and was adjourned by KAALO executive director mohamud Hamid Mohamed.
