Students complete first semester of studies

The two students who are being sponsored by HiCEP to study on the Teacher Training course at Amoud University in Boroma have just completed the first semester’s work and are awaiting the results of the examinations. At the end of February they will start the second semester. By the summer they will be half way through the two year course. Next year they will return to Beled-Weyne to re-open the school.

Film of Dad

I uploaded the film of Dad I made for the memorial service:

Also available at hicep.org.uk

New HiCEP website

We have created a new website at hicep.org.uk. It was just over a year ago we started this blog, my Dad was home for what turned out to be his last Christmas with us and one of the things he asked for was a website so that our supporters around the world could see the progress with the school. The last post was on 30 March 2008, two weeks later the school was attacked and Dad was killed alongside Rehana, Andrew and Gilford.

I look back on 2008 as the worst year of our lives. It was not just the attack itself but the subsequent outbreak of fighting which threatened the lives of our family on a daily basis. I will never forget speaking to my cousin whilst the Ethiopian Army was shelling Belet Weyne. It is a world we in the West can go through our whole lives without ever being exposed to.

Through all this we carried on. The HiCEP staff here and in Somalia together managed to get two students enrolled at Boroma University, repair and reopen the library and ensure the school building was defended. All in all it was an incredible achievement by Mum, Hilary, Abdi Aziz, Abdishakur, Abdulqadir and Faisal. All of us are determined that Dad's work continue and that we continue to contribute to education in Hiran.