Shepherd Nyamhuno
View artist portfolioPoverty has various manifestations, including lack of income and productive resources sufficient to ensure sustainable livelihoods; hunger and malnutrition, ill health, limited or lack of access to education and other basic services; increased morbidity and mortality from illness; homelessness and inadequate housing; unsafe environments; and social discrimination and exclusion. It is also characterised by a lack of participation in decision-making and in civil, social and cultural life.
Poverty is inseparably linked to lack of control over resources, including land, skills, knowledge, capital and social connections. Without those resources, people are easily neglected by policy makers and have limited access to institutions, markets, employment and public services. The eradication of poverty cannot therefore be accomplished through anti-poverty programmes alone but will require democratic participation and changes in economic structures in order to ensure equitable distribution of wealth and income, to provide social protection for those who cannot support themselves, and to assist people confronted by unforeseen catastrophe, whether individuals or collective, natural, social or technological.1
Finally, the principle that rulers are chosen by and accountable to the people implies that democracy is government by the consent of the governed, who must approve not only the rules by which they are administered, but also the rules themselves, as well as the policies the latter will implement. Here is where the notion of accountability comes in: that rules are accountable to the people for their acts
- Country
- Somalia
- Submitted
- 2007-04-29
- License
- No reuse license recorded. Copyright remains with the creator.
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Somali today by yusuf Mohamed
An estimated 10-11 million people speak Somali today. The official languages of Somalia are Arabic and Somali. As a result of its colonial past, many southern Somalis also speak Italian.
The Somalis are one of the oldest African groups in Britain, with communities in the port cities of Cardiff, Liverpool, Hull, South Shields and London. There are also important communities in Birmingham, Manchester and Leicester. A large proportion of those who have settled recently are victims of the civil war whose education has been seriously interrupted. The first wave of refugees arrived in England in the late 1980s via refugee camps in Ethiopia and Djibouti; they were mainly from the Isaaq clan. They tended to settle alongside clan members such as the former seamen of the East End of London.
An estimated 70,000 Somalis live in the capital, approximately 10,000 of whom can be found in Tower Hamlets, an area which was the home of Somali seamen who stayed in the capital following service in World War 1. In a 2000 survey of London school children, Somali emerged as the tenth most commonly spoken language in the capital.
Somali is the vehicle of a rich oral culture, including storytelling, poetry and riddles. Many elders are still able to recite poems that are centuries old. In fact, Islam and poetry are sometimes described as the twin pillars of Somali culture