Volunteer Somalia

The country of Somalia is pretty much synonymous with conflict and very few aid agencies are prepared to put the lives of their volunteer workers in danger and therefore they only tend to operate in the war torn country for brief spells, dropping off humanitarian aid or evacuating their workers. As such, those who are hoping to undertake some volunteer work in the country will be disappointed unless you want to work with the Red Cross/Red Crescent. You can get some idea of how bad things are in Somalia when you consider that on all of our other volunteer work in Africa pages we reference the Human Development Index for each country, a global index that ranks each country in terms of life expectancy, literacy, access to knowledge and living standards. Somalia ranks 170 out of 189 countries and territories, a rank shared with Haiti. In Somalia hundreds of thousands of children have taken up arms either voluntarily or through coercion to fight in the conflict with many being used as ammo fodder and health and educational provision are below the radar. There is some evidence of improvement of late however it will be some time before Somalia opens its borders and provides a safe welcome to the volunteer work community.

Please note many volunteer work opportunities in Somalia have been put on hold because of travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Hopefuly they will be back up and running soon. In the meantime, if you run or know of a volunteer work project in Somalia let us know by contacting here. We look forward to hearing from you!

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The Lighthouse Project In a shameless bit of self-promotion, read this novel by the African Volunteer Network team about volunteering in Uganda. "Well worth the read especially for those working with non-profits abroad. In fact, it should be required reading." More >

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Red Crescent In addition to its humanitarian aid work, the Red Crescent in Somalia also provides polio vaccinations. Visit >

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Edna Hospital Recruiting medical doctors - particularly OB/GYN's. They also accept volunteers who can teach English as a foreign language to their staff and students and those who can help in their library and others who can help with their computers and IT needs. Visit >

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Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation The Dr. Hawa Abdi Foundation is currently only accepting volunteers from the Somalia Diaspora. Visit >

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Muslim Aid Volunteer work in various projects in health, education and the emergency relief sector. Visit >

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Somalia Profile Find out more about Somalia, its people and what daily life is like there in our Somalia profile pages. More >

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