Is this good news or what?! Congrats Nimo Ahmed Mohamoud !!!



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

PSU APPOINTED NIMCO AHMED MOHAMOUD DEAN OF ACADAMIC AFFAIRS

First Female Dean in Puntland Higher Education

June 1, 2007 Puntland State University Garowe Campus President has appointed Nimo Ahmed Mohamoud Acting Dean of Academic Affairs. This appointment is an additional responsibility to her current teaching position.The first female dean, she will be head of the Academic Division responsible for teaching/ learning, research, registry, admissions, and student services provision.

The aftermath of the civil strife left many women alone and with no means to provide for their children, and in great need of additional education and training. Puntland State University attempted establishing educational initiatives concentrated on training centering on gender equity, enhancing the role of women and the promotion of human rights.

Nimo Ahmed Mohamoud is product of Puntland State University mission and vision and Ms. Nimo stated “I am committed Puntland State University to be one of the best higher education in Puntland and Somali in general. Nimo graduated from a two year Diploma course offered female students at PSU during its formative stages. Afterwards she left Puntland for India, where successfully completed Bachelor of Business Administration and Masters Business Administration. Upon completion of the MBA, Nimo consulted with PSU administration expressing her desire to come back to Somalia. PSU in liaison with UNDP Somalia-through the QUEST program organized and facilitated Nimo’s return to her former College as an Instructor.

Ms. Nimo has Bachelors degree in Business Administration from University of Madras India and master’s degree in Business Administration from (Training and Advanced Management and Communication) TASMAC India validated with the University of Wales UK. She will be the youngest female to hold such position in Puntland. Nimo aspires to foster democratic Institutional leadership to steer PSU to greater heights of prosperity. She is committed to the developing of and upholding PSU values of gender equality and women development through Education.

Puntland State University vision is to improve the life of Puntland and Somali people through the provision of sustainable education and skill-training policies with feasible education programme development. The University will enhance its reputation as an institution of higher learning where imagination, innovation, and application of knowledge are integrated to provide leadership into the future.

If you will like to learn more about PSU please contact and scheduled a meeting with Mohamud Hamud at kaaloorg@yahoo.comThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or phone +2525794076.


Contact: Mohamud Hamud
Tel: +2525844247/
kaaloorg@yahoo.com

"Positive Feedback"

From Kindness: Making a Difference in People's Lives: Formulas, stories, and insights
By Zelig Pliskin
Printed with Permission of Shaar Press

Some people identify themselves with their faults, weaknesses, and limitations. This weakens and limits them. Others identify themselves with their virtues, skills, and positive qualities. This strengthens those people and brings out their best.

Identify yourself with your strengths and virtues. This will help you help others do the same.

"What are your main strengths and virtues?" you can ask. Some will feel comfortable telling them to you. Others won’t. Some out of modesty. Others because they haven’t as yet identified themselves with their strengths. When they do, it will feel so natural to them that they will readily mention it to others. It’s not boasting but a statement of fact similar to one’s height or color of eyes.

Keep offering positive feedback whenever you can. The less a person identifies with his strengths, the more important it is for you to strengthen his identification with them.

Positive feedback is different than general praise. It is when you notice skill, talent, and excellence and comment:

"That was very good."

"I see that you are highly skilled at this."

"Well-done."

"This job was done with precision."

"You do this excellently."

"I admire your proficiency."

"You are a true expert."

One of my students told me this story:

My parents criticized me, and rarely gave me positive feedback. I grew up feeling that I had many more faults than strengths. What changed my view of myself was a series of meetings I had with an empowering teacher. He pointed out strengths that I only barely realized that I possessed.

"You are your strengths," he told me.

"But I hardly ever apply them," I argued.

"If you would apply them all the time I wouldn’t have to reinforce your awareness of them," he smiled. "What really stops you from identifying yourself with your strengths?" he challenged me.

I thought for a moment and admitted, "The true answer is simply because I’m just not used to seeing myself that way."

"Experiment for an entire week," he suggested. "This week consider yourself a person who has these strengths. See the difference this makes."

I tried this for the week. It helped me so much that I kept it up. This was the single most empowering advice I had ever heard and it has made a major difference in my life.

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If you have permission to reprint this e-mail, please ensure that you reprint the entire e-mail (including this notice).

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Ow di bodi? Di bodi fayn! is the way of greeting here!

It has been some time that i wrote on this blog! I had nothing interesting to jot down!
But now i do!

I am in Sierra Leone for a month doing research on the cultural dimension of systematic violence against women. I am in Freetwon fo 2 weks and i will be in Makeni for another two.

Its hot and rainng heavily here as it is the rainy season; but the people here are so friendly and helpful that i just stare in admiration!!!


more soon!!!

we go si back!!!
sahro

Monday night - Dice K pitching for the Nation. Hungry fans ate and ate and ate - they ate their faces off on Monday night. Fat bastards. Sausage Cook grilled 340 snags - a season record on a tiny grill. And you know what else - Monday night's fans were the season's worst tippers too. They will live long in my memory as the most gluttonous and stingiest fans I've encountered. By contrast, on Tuesday night Sausage Cook grilled 240 sausages - and made double the tips! Who knew?

By the way, kudos to the couple of Finns I met last night - my first set of Fans from Finland; I just thought it was cute the way they asked for a hot dog. Usually the Japanese win the accent award, but this times the Finns win.

As far as the baseball was concerned, I thought the Tigers' manager Jim Leyland was going to pull bullpen guy Rooney in the ninth with one out to get. It almost looked like a shade of the panic shown by the Orioles manager on Sunday night. It turned out Leyland was taking a moment to reassure Rooney to get that last out.

To hyperlink a website in your TIGblog post, you have to input some HTML code to make it work.

The HTML code that you need is on the right - look right!

Replace [http://www.takingitglobal.org] with the actual website address you want to link to, and replace [A really cool website] with whatever you want the link to say (this doesn't affect where the link will lead to upon clicking, its only the text of the hyperlink). Note: make sure to include the http:// in the link part!

Follow these steps.

1. All hyperlinks need to begin with A and end with /A - surrounded by an opening arrow A and a closing arrow A. The closing arrow A needs a slash (/) before it. Notice the slash (/) before the second A. The slash closes the link code. Look at the image in the top right corner of this box for an example.

2. HREF"

3. http://www.takingitglobal.org">A really cool
website

4. closing arrow /A

And to have a link show up in the right-hand side menu bar, it first has to be one of your 'Favourite Links' within your profile. Go to 'edit profile' in the MyTIG tab, then click on 'About Me'. At the very bottom of the page, add your link. Make sure that your TIGblog settings allow your link to show up in your blog- but I see you already have some links up there, so that should be find. Good luck!

Best Regards,

Stephanie
TakingITGlobal Member Services

My latest newsletter for my firm - EDRG - is available at the link below.

May 2007 Newsletter

Local Economic Assessment Package (LEAP)

Sausage Cook Blog

Hello all,

This is my first post concerning this year's edition of the Red Sox. From my position grilling sausages inside the park, I have a good view of the mood of the fans, what's on everybody's mind, a few inside tit-bits from park employees and how things are shaping up in '07. I'll be posting from time to time as I'm inspired to comment on all things Red Sox.

Dice-K mania is definitely on the up and up. It's bringing a lot more Japanese fans to the games, tons of journalists, created a fan-club called the Dice-K Girls ( all very pretty from what I've seen so far), lots of dubious sushi in the bars around the ground, and a cautious sense of optimism from serious baseball people. Red Sox Nation wants to love Dice-K, but there is a sense that he has to earn the love of the Nation - it won't be granted unconditionally until the results are posted. The jury's still out on Dice-K, despite two high quality starts already in (April 15).

The park feels more crowded inside - partly 'cos fans are hanging out below the stands to stay warm, eat and drink - and partly due to the extra seats installed along the right field roof. There's a new little stand up there; the owners try to squeeze more people in each year.

With three washouts already on the books, the latter part of the season looks to be filled with double-headers. You have to feel sorry for Seattle, losing a complete three-series in Cleveland, and then one with the Sox last week. Anaheim is copping it over this weekend. Playing a doubleheader at home must be a huge advantage when it comes time to play.

Alright - that's it for this weekend. There will probably be no game in the morning - and no Marathon either. A good day to stay in bed or head to the warm office job.
Seeya,
Sausage Cook

I am a poet and beautiful poetical words used for expressions of love, longing, melancholy, spirituality and passion always trigger and inspire me .....thus activating my poetic self.

Lets share the verbal manifestaions of love and passion....
Hope we can inspire each other...

check this out..sent to me by a friend:

Woman has Man in it;
Mrs. has Mr . in it;
Female has Male in it;
She has He in it;
Madam has Adam in it;
No wonder men always want to be inside women!
ANSWER IS
Men were born between the legs of a woman, yet men spend all their
Life and time trying to go back between the legs of a woman...... Why?
BECAUSE HOME SWEET HOME.

I am looking for information on best practices on violence against women anywhere in the world.

Please share your stoties with me.
Thank you so much!
Sahro

Dear all,

I am working on a program that deals with Violence against Women (www.cordaid.nl). I would like to know what your views, expereinces and expertise are on the topic of CULTURALviolence against women and young girls in the world. Cultural violence will be the theme of the paper i will write at the end of the year; its my contribution to the program's further development because i think it is an important one.

Acoording to theorists, not much is academically written about the topic of cultural violence against women. The world has not given it its due attention, often because of its sensetivity-the word 'culture' makes it even harder. In every part of the world, women’s roles and positions in society are prescribed. One of the key aspects of every culture is the way it defines gender roles. Almost without exception women are assigned to roles which are subservient to those of men. These roles are often enforced through violence.

Social and political institutions foster women’s subservience and violence against women. Certain cultural practices and traditions – particularly those related to ideas of purity and chastity -- are invoked to explain or excuse such violence. Virtually every culture in the world contains forms of violence against women that are nearly invisible because they are seen as “normal”.

Often, the behaviour of a woman is considered to reflect on her family and community. If a woman is seen to be defying her cultural role, she may be held to have brought shame and dishonour on her family and community. In such circumstances, violence or the threat of violence is used as a means of punishment and control. In the most extreme cases, this can result in permanent disfigurement and even death. So-called “honour” crimes are treated leniently in the legal codes of many countries.

Case study: "At least 270 women were murdered in “honour killings” - usually by their husbands or brothers - in 2002 in Punjab province alone. The figures were compiled by the non-governmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, based on police reports. Some were killed because they protested against forced marriages or asserted their right to choose their husband. Others were killed for actions such as a look misconstrued as a sign of an illicit relationship" (www.amnesty.nl)

Even in countries where laws criminalize violence against women, tolerance of violence may be found at all levels of society. Gender-based violence is made possible by the ideology of sexism which argues that women are worth less than men in the sense of having less power, status, privilege, and access to resources. Sexism is a system of beliefs and attitudes based on the alleged inferiority of women; an inferiority which translates into attitudes that hold that women cannot be believed, that women are inferior, and that women are inherently subordinate to men.

According to the top United Nations refugee official there is a “massive” culture of neglect and denial about violence against women, and refugee populations are in the front line of the scourge. The recent rapea ccusations of UN peacekeeping soldiers in Sudan is not being adequately handled in my opinion because that culture of neglect and denial exist everywhere- even at the UN level.

Sad. very Sad.

Don’t Mortgage your Dream! recently opened its virtual doors on CafePress.com, see: http://www.cafepress.com/dmyd

Don't Mortgage your Dream hopes to inspire people to be Action-Biased and Live their Dreams

Don’t Mortgage your Dream! urge people to take risks, embrace failure, be passionate, dream impossible dreams, explore the unknown, and strive beyond

Don’t Mortgage your Dream! is about helping people to discover and develop their entrepreneurial spirits

Copyright © 2006. All rights reserved. Obsessed with an idea. Set it in motion are servicemarks of Don't Mortgage your Dream!


Business Development enquiries:
Ayodeji Adewunmi
e: adewunmiayodeji@gmail.com

Strengthening the Role of Women in the News Media Worldwide
http://www.iwmf.org

Africa Program


The International Women’s Media Foundation sponsors two major projects in Africa: the Maisha Yetu project to improve the quality and consistency of reporting on HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria and the Carole Simpson Leadership Institute.

The goal of IWMF’s Africa programs is to bring the voices of African women more prominently into the media – as reporters, producers, managers, executives, CEOs and media experts.

To accomplish this goal, the IWMF has offered training workshops for journalists on the following topics:

leadership development
media management
computer training in new media technologies
journalism ethics
specialized journalism skills
balancing work and family
coalition building
reporting on HIV/AIDS

More than 1,000 journalists have participated in IWMF programs and workshops conducted for journalists in Africa. The IWMF launched its Africa network in partnership with the Dakar-based Africa Women's Media Center which closed in 2004.

The IWMF continues to work on a variety of projects across the continent.


http://www.iwmf.org

He you all, in my search for Somali wisdom, i came across this inspiring story of the journey of one Somali man.....it inspired me and i wanted to share it with you ...


Somali peacebroker: Yusuf Al-Azhari spent six years in solitary confinement as a political prisoner
BY:Michael Smith

Yusuf Al-Azhari was walking between two Somali villages recently when he found a woman lying under a tree with her four children. She had malaria. He laid her head in his lap and she died four hours later. He took the children to the nearest village, a kilometre away, gathered the villagers together and found families to take them in. Countless other children are not so lucky in a nation still in a state of anarchy following the collapse of its Marxist government in 1991 and an all-out civil war. For the past six years there has been no government or judiciary; schools and hospitals are closed, disease and famine rife; children die of malnutrition; and warlords fight for control of the capital, Mogadishu.

Al-Azhari is one of a network of peacebrokers among the intellectuals, religious leaders, businessmen and the women who are bringing together the warring clans in sustained dialogues for reconciliation. A former diplomat and senior administrator, he now describes himself as a `peacemaker and reconciliation promoter'. Recently, the reconcilers spent four months bringing together clans that were fighting each other in the southern port of Kismaayo. For 28 days, their leaders sat under a tree `without accusing each other' until they reached an agreement. `We prefer to call the clan leaders "peace lords" in a psychological bid to tranquillize them,' says Al-Azhari. `Now there is no civil war in Kismaayo. What we are trying to do next is to form a reconciliation conference, either in Somalia or outside.'

It is a dangerous task. At one point, 22 peace negotiators were rounded up and shot. Al-Azhari was one of only three who survived. He had two bullets taken out of his thigh; one remains embedded in his leg. Contrary to world media perception, Al-Azhari says the UN's abortive peacekeeping and humanitarian intervention in Somalia in 1993 was a net benefit to the nation. It ended the worst of the civil war and created a climate in which the warlords, leaders of Somalia's six major clans, were willing to sit down and talk. Where the UN, and the US forces involved, went wrong was in attempting to arrest such warlords as General Aidid, at a time when the nation had no legal framework to bring them to book. Instead, the UN's action merely elevated their status.

In the absence of the UN, much of the drive for peace is coming from the women who have seen their families butchered on an horrific scale. A UNICEF report says that some 40 per cent of Somalia's children are believed to have died or are completely disabled, physically and mentally. Al-Azhari brings to his work of reconciliation his faith as a devout Muslim, his years of experience in diplomacy, and his personal experience of repression. For six years in the Seventies he was held without trial in solitary confinement. Yusuf Omar Ahmed Al-Azhari was born in 1940 into a wealthy family. He took his doctorate in political science and international law at Mogadishu University, and married `the best girl in town', Kadija, the daughter of Prime Minister Abdu Rashid Sharmarke, who later became the second president of independent Somalia. Al-Azhari was appointed senior diplomat in Bonn and then Ambassador to the USA. Smalia, with its strategic access to the Red Sea from the Horn of Africa, became an increasing focus for the cold war between the superpowers. In 1969, Sharmarke was assassinated and five days later General Mohammed Siad Barre came to power in a Soviet-backed coup. His regime was to become one of the world's most oppressive.

Al-Azhari is uncompromising about the part that corruption played in discrediting capitalism and democracy. He cites Western construction companies, brought in to build 30 schools, who offered so many `commissions' to officials that only three schools were built. `The people turned to the socialist-communist system in reaction,' he says. Summoned home from Washington, he was soon arrested, under `emergency security measures', and imprisoned for four and half months. He was transferred to a military camp to be trained in Marxism for nine months, before being sent to work as a farm labourer. Passing all these tests, as he puts it, he was appointed Director General at the Ministry of Information and National Guidance. `I was supposed to orientate the public to the principles of scientific socialism,' though he remained suspect to the regime. He held this post for nearly two years, during which he was offered scholarships in the Soviet Union, East Germany,

North Korea and Cuba, `all of which I managed somehow to decline'. In 1974, he became Ambassador to Nigeria, covering seven other West African nations. At a reception in Lagos for a large Soviet delegation, Al-Azhari queried why such a high level delegation had come to a capitalistic country, `when they always tell us that capitalism is evil'. His question may have sealed his fate: within two weeks he was recalled to Mogadishu. A year later, he was asleep with his wife and four children when soldiers burst in at 3am and seized him. He was handcuffed, blindfolded, thrown into a Land Rover and taken to a prison 350 km outside Mogadishu. It was built by East Germany to Stasi specifications: a cell three metres by four, where Al-Azhari had `no one to talk to, nothing to read, nothing to listen to'. And `to remind me that I was not a tourist in that cell', the guards tortured him daily, both physically and psychologically. He was one of thousands swept up in the purge. Many died, were driven mad or disabled. He too reached the point of madness: `I was full of anger, hatred and depression. I was completely dehydrated, all skin and bones. I lost half my weight. It is painful to recall.' One evening, several months after his capture, he knelt down in despair and prayed: `God, if you are truly there, help me to have peace within myself. Give me a vision of the good purpose you have created for me.' He remained on his knees for eight hours. `They felt like eight minutes. When I got up at 4am I felt light in body and soul. I had no fear. Instead a cool air of love and forgiveness had been planted in my heart.'

His guards, who had enjoyed baiting him, thought he had gone mad when he greeted them in the morning as `brothers'. From that day on, Al-Azhari ordered his day into a routine: half an hour for jogging exercise; half an hour for breakfast; the rest of the day for reviewing his life. `In the evening I was soaked in prayer from 5pm till I went to bed.' As well as a sense of God's presence, which never left him, he also found comfort in his `friends': an ant, a cockroach, a spider weaving her web, and a lizard. The guards threw mutilated rats into his cell to indicate the fate that he might suffer, and shone bright lights on him at night to keep him awake. Yet the punishments cased to touch him. `I felt happy and free,' he insists. Once he was handcuffed for 48 days, the irons cutting into his wrist. His whole forearm became swollen and infected with maggots and puss. When he refused to have his arm amputated, the prison doctor shrugged, believing that he would die anyway. The guards removed the handcuffs, and Al-Azhari was able to squeeze out the infection. Within 20 days, the swelling had subsided. `I could move my fingers again.' But the scar remains. Outside the jail, the Marxist nation was degenerating into economic chaos and poverty. `Barre couldn't even pay the prison guards,' says Al-Azhari. `Everyone was turning against him.' Eventually the prisoners were turned loose. Al-Azhari made his way to Mogadishu to find his wife and family. They had been told that he had died within a week of his arrest. In the six years that had passed they had adjusted to life without him. When he arrived on their doorstep, emaciated and with a beard that fell to his knees, his wife believed she was seeing a ghost and fainted. It took her a week to recover.

By this time, the Soviet Union had begun to support the Mengistu regime in neighbouring Ethiopia. General Barre felt betrayed, as the two nations had been at war over their claims to the Ogaden region, and he switched his allegiance to America. He offered Al-Azhari any place he wanted in the government. Al-Azhari replied, `I will not oppose you, but I will do nothing to support you.' Soon afterwards Barre fled the country and was eventually given asylum in Nigeria. Two years after his release, Al-Azhari was taking tea in a Mogadishu restaurant when a thought `dropped into my mind': `Why don't you forgive that man?' He struggled with the thought for weeks. `It tore me into pieces. How will he react if he has not asked for forgiveness?' Moreover, Al-Azhari had no money to pay for a flight to Nigeria. Barre had confiscated all his wealth while he was in prison. It seemed like a divine sign when the UN delegated him to take part in an OAU conference in Dakar, Senegal.

He found Barre in a small apartment in Lagos. Tears of remorse flowed down Barre's face when Al-Azhari expressed his forgiveness. After half an hour, Barre composed himself: `You have cured me. I can sleep tonight knowing that there are people like you in Somalia.' Barre died two years later. Today, Al-Azhari's wife and children live in Canada. They urge him to join them. But he fears that if he goes he will not want to return to Somalia. He has also been offered a position at the United Nations in New York. But when he weighs $10,000 a month and a big office against 10,000 children who stand to die of war and starvation, he knows where his first allegiance lies. The `good purpose' for which he prayed to God in his prison cell is to remain with his people, and to help them restore peace.

LAWRENCEVILLE, Georgia (AP) -- An Ethiopian immigrant was convicted Wednesday of the genital mutilation of his 2-year-old daughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in what was believed to be the first such criminal case in the United States.

Khalid Adem, 30, was found guilty of aggravated battery and cruelty to children. Prosecutors said he used scissors to remove his daughter's clitoris in his family's Atlanta-area apartment in 2001. The child's mother, Fortunate Adem, A South African, said she did not discover it until more than a year later.

read on, with vdeo of trial
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/01/female.circumcision.ap/index.html