The Canadian International Peace Project and the Canadian Somali Congress represented by Mark Persaud and Ahmed Hussen as well as Professor Hussein Warsame of the Haskayne School of Business at the University of Calgary were invited by Amanda Lindhout to launch the Somali Women’s Scholarship Program in Red Deer, Alberta on Sunday, May 16th, 2010. The Canadian International Peace Project  and the Canadian Somali Congress are partnering with the Global Enrichment Foundation (website: http://globalenrichmentfoundation.com/) on this initiative and Ahmed Hussen has been made a founding Director of the Global Enrichment Foundation.

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Amanda Lindhout who was held hostage for more than 15 months in Somalia is starting the Somali Women’s Scholarship Program to send women in the war-torn country to university.  Amanda hopes the charitable foundation will be able send 10 women to school in the next academic year and 100 women over the next four years in the country where only four per cent of women pursue higher education.  Each scholarship funded through public donations will be worth $1,000, providing enough for university tuition and a living stipend.  Until the Global Enrichment Foundation gets charitable status, it will partner with the Mary A. Tidlund Charitable Foundation so tax receipts can be issued to donors.  “I’m inspired by the resilience and strength of their spirit,” said Lindhout. “Powerful social and economic change takes place when a woman is educated.” Although Lindhout does not intend to return to Somalia, she remains deeply affected by the plight of women in that country.  “I will feel completely free when my sisters in Somalia are no longer suffering,” she said.  Ahmed Hussen, Professor Warsame and Mark Persaud all supported Amanda Lindhout’s view that educating women in Somalia is perhaps the single most important thing that could be done to move Somalia out of it’s decades old civil war and chaos.

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