The Al Hayat Hospital, Borama - By Dr. Suleiman Walhad

It is one more step and another landmark in our quest to take care of the education and healthcare of our people ourselves and to develop our own country. It was about a decade and half ago, when we first launched the Amoud University Project, which revolutionized the way we educate our youth and provide healthcare for our people. The project, as we all know, has changed the landscape of education throughout the Somali inhabited regions of the Horn of Africa, where one can now find, at least, one institution of higher learning in each major town or city.

The acquisition by Amoud University of Al Hayat Hospital, a fully modern and fully equipped medical facility this month of January 2010, through the dedication and hard work of Amoud Foundation, one of the plethora of organizations that sprang up after the launch of Amoud University Project must not be left without a word from us. We must pay homage to Amoud Foundation, Amoud University and all the individuals and organizations that participated in the realization of the Al Hayat Hospital Project.

Many years ago, we realized that government programs and government resources alone would not help our children, nor would they fully attend to and address the healthcare needs of our people. We knew that we have to come up with a new mindset, a mindset that involved a changed attitude on how we could take care of our destiny in our own hands. We knew that no one would do it for us and so we embarked on that Amoud University Project, whose fruits, we continue to reap each day that passes.

We had to overcome so many prejudices and especially the notion that governments alone can deliver for us the education and healthcare that our people were in dire need. We had to overcome the notion that only money and large amounts of it would help our people and we had to demonstrate that we could change our destiny ourselves once we put our hands and minds together and the Al Hayat Hospital is yet again another demonstration of that mindset and another milestone in that road that we chose for our people – the road to be self-reliant, hard working and seizing our own future each and every day that passes.

We must, once again, say “Hurray!!!!!” to Amoud Foundation and Amoud University and specially its medical team, who today produce the best home grown doctors and medical personnel in the African continent.

Suleiman Walhad (Ph.D), Hasan Ali Osman, Abdisalam Nur and Idris Saad

The Founding Fathers of Amoud University