Our Work

Drop the Gun, Pick Up the Pen.

It started as a slogan. It became a national mantra. For over three decades, the three-tiered model — disengage, rehabilitate, reintegrate — has been the operating principle of everything we do.

“You can't just take the gun. You have to replace it with something — a book, a skill, a reason to believe tomorrow is worth showing up for.”

Ilwad Elman

The Leaders Are Already Here.

Young Somali women finish school and earn degrees, and still hit a wall. The gap isn't ambition — it's access. She Will and our two Girls Leadership Academies exist to close that gap directly.

You Cannot Build Peace in a Body Still Carrying War.

Sister Somalia is the first rape crisis centre in the country. Basketball and Ocean Therapy are built into every other programme we run, not offered on the side.

Peace by Africa.

With UNDP, we convened the first regional symposium for civil society organisations working on community-based reintegration. That grew into Peace by Africa, a continental network. We now award sub-grants to reintegration programmes in the Lake Chad Basin and Great Lakes regions.

Building Somalia's Workforce. Shaping Its Markets.

Twenty years of vocational training, updated annually against the labour market. Training and Placing (TAP): apprenticeships, job placements, start-up grants. Employers now come to us directly. A new partnership with LG is adding tracks tied to real job creation in Mogadishu.