In 2014, SAMRADO built a school in Somalia for blind, orphaned, and underprivileged youth. Our incentives are focused towards these children: teaching them braille, accommodating the environment for blindness, and providing them a universal standard of education which they may not receive otherwise. SAMRADO students are taught by both blind and non-blind teachers. And their education doesn’t start and end with SAMRADO. With our funding and your donations we provide scholarships for individual children, as well as aid the implementation of a better standard of youth education in Somali communities.

SAMRADO realizes the growing problem of food insecurity in the community of Somalia. It helps the community by providing food for the hungry. The orphans and the blind people with no one around them for help are fed daily by the organization of SAMRADO.

SAMRADO advocates for blind people like no other organization in the community of Somalia. This organization believes in participating in different governmental affairs and advocates on behalf of the blind community in Somalia. This organization generally demands equal rights for the blind and underprivileged youth of the community.

Our values stem from our belief in humanitarianism. The belief that, regardless of race, religion, culture, background, and anything that a person may be judged for — we are all equal and must be treated as such. SAMRADO advocates for these people, especially our children in Somalia. We aim to give these children a voice, speak up for a better life.

It is important to understand the difference in social conventions between Somalia and the western world. In many third world countries, including Somalia, there is a stigma towards persons with disabilities including, but not limited to, blindness, deafness, and loss of ability to walk. In some religions these disadvantages are seen as sinful, regardless if these disadvantages started at birth or were caused by an accident. This stigma creates a negative bias and creates a considerable difficulty for people affected to seek and find assistance. A better awareness of these social conventions in worlds where these ideas are much different—such as the west and first world countries—helps us understand the real difficulty in addressing these problems. It’s not just the difficulty of not being able to see or inability to walk, it’s the hard truth that these disadvantages are looked down upon and it is extremely difficult to find help.

One of our main goals for our children in Somalia is to help them become self-sufficient. One step we’ve already made towards this goal was creating a bakery in the SAMRADO schoolhouse, which our students help run, and the earnings from baked goods which are sold go towards further funding for the school and the children. This is only one example of the many plans we hope to implement in our organization.