This is the home that was once destroyed, and I am now back to rebuild it. I left Somaliland 19 years ago. My departure was the tragedy of my youth; I missed my friends and family. I met many kind people in Canada, but still struggled to adjust to a new home.

I am trained as a counselor in the field of mental health care, and I have always yearned to use my skills to help support the rebuilding of my country.

Through some friends, I learned about a programme run by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNDP that takes Somali experts living in the diaspora back home, on short-term consultancies, for the purpose of building the technical capacity of civil servants. The programme facilitates the transfer of skills, knowledge and experience from qualified Somali diaspora experts to public sector institutions.

I signed up, and was assigned to the Puntland Agency for Social Welfare (PASWE) as a Counselling Psychologist.

In Somalia, following years of violence, many families are traumatized by their experiences. The services psychologists offer are essential for the healing of this nation’s wounds, but the number of people that need this support far out-weighs the number of psychologists that are available.

To see patients brought in, in chains on their first day and then a few months later come back on their own; that was the most rewarding gift ever.

At PASWE, one of the first things I noticed was that many mentally ill people could not afford to buy their prescribed medicine. Alongside a team of other Counsellors, we successfully lobbied for free medication from organizations like the World Health Organization and GRT, an Italian international organization.

I also trained 12 nurses and university students on the basics of psychology, the development of a data collection system, advocating mental health issues, and community sensitization.