About US
About Us
Mother and Child Development Organization is a non-governmental, non-political, non-religious and non-profit making indigenous organization established to improve the livelihood of impoverished women and children directly working at the grass root level with the local communities to address their needs and to enhance sustainable development in the region.Background
Somali region is one of the second largest region lies in the eastern and south eastern part of the country and is inhabited by nearly 4 million ethnic Somali. Somali region is the driest region in the country ever known. It receives a very little rain fall compared to the high land areas. The occupation of the people is mainly pastoral and agro pastoral, few of them engaged in various petty trades. The socio economic situation of Somali region was very low than all other regions due to negligence of the past regimes. As a result internal boarder conflict, recurrent drought, influx of refugees, displaced people caused by wars and natural calamities such as drought both with in the country and neighboring countries has exacerbated the situation.The Somali traditional system that was formerly known to automatically support the poorest group in a community has no longer existent today because of the continuous needs of the poor and Due to the deteriorating social status of the community. As a result there was no tangible socio-economic interventions directly addressing poor Somali women who head the household and their children. Unlike the men who go to school or travel to distant place for family affairs, there is less chance for women to get educated since they are generally involved in household activities cooking, fetching water, collecting firewood, looking after their children and serving the men during cultivation. Boys are sent to school while girls stay at home. In regard to the mentioned issues MCDO began to straggle to improve the situation in order to sustain a better livelihood to these front line victims of the society.
Establishment of MCDO
Regardless of the current situation discussed in the background, there were lot of other drawbacks to the involvement of women in development projects; especially they are not consulted when designing any development projects. Their role in identification, prioritization, planning and decision making for the solution of their own was a common despising of women by the community particularly by men for centuries. This has been mostly due to entrenched cultural beliefs emphasizing that women should be dictated by their husband, elder sons, brothers and other male relatives voluntary Somali women who were Well-aware of the oppression responded and held several informal meetings in the year 1996 and 1997. Established MCDO and registered in national justice bureau and received legal entity.Main office being in Jigjiga town and began multi sectoral activities in collaboration with several international and national partners. Among the various humanitarian aid and development intervention major activities have been carried out in the community by MCDO in the past years.
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