The Global Enrichment Foundation

Aurelia Uarsama is a Somali advocate for women's rights whose aim is to empower women through education. Living in Canada, Uarsama has a Masters Degree in Sociology from the University of Bologna in Italy. While there, she wrote a thesis titled Education in Somalia: Changes and Gender Differentiation.  Uarsama is a passionate activist and Project Coordinator for the Somali Women Scholarship Program. In addtion to dedicating herself to volunteer work in Somali communities, she has also participated in a research project conducted by the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta dealing with social support services for African immigrants and refugees in Alberta. In the summer of 2011, she has coordinated a project entitled IDYL (Individual Distinctive Youth Leadership Program) designed for at-risk or immigrant youth of Somali background. The program consisted of several workshops designed specifically to empower young girls in education. A member of Canadian Association of African Studies (CAAS), she is currently enrolled at the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, working on her M. Ed Degree. Her areas of research include empowering women and bridging capital to facilitate women integration in Canadian social fabric; African tertiary education and its role in creating favourable conditions to counter complex social and environmental issues in African countries; higher education in Africa and globalization.

Dr. Hussein Warsame is the Chair of the Accounting Area at the Haskayne School of Business, University of Calgary and the Certified General Accountants (CGA) Faculty Fellow. He holds a BSc in Chemistry from Somali National University, an MBA with a concentration in Accounting and Finance from California State University - Fresno and a PhD in Management with a major in Accounting and Taxation from University of Calgary. Dr. Warsame joined the University of Calgary in 2000. Prior to that, he was a faculty member in the John Molson School of Business of Concordia University in Montreal for 5 years. He also taught in universities in Somalia, the US, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, and Peru. His teaching interests are in taxation and financial accounting. In addition to the undergraduate programs, Dr. Warsame taught students in MBA, Executive MBA, Aviation MBA, and Energy MBA programs. He also supervises PhD candidates in accounting.

He is a winner of the University of Calgary Student Union Teaching Excellence Award (Honorable mention 2008), the 2007 Chartered Accountants' Education Foundation Teaching Excellence Prize, the 2002 Chartered Accountants' Education Foundation Teaching Award and the 2002 - 2003 Haskayne School of Business Commerce Undergraduate Society Teaching Excellence Award.

Prizes won by Dr. Warsame’s research include the Vernon K. Zimmerman Best Paper Award presented by the Center for International Education and Research in Accounting in 1999.

Dr. Warsame served in the Editorial Review Boards of several accounting and business journals, including the Journal of Business Research(JBR), and Accounting Education - An International Journal. He serves as a reviewer for several accounting journals. He also serves as board member in several organizations such the Canadian Academic Accounting Association (CAAA), and the Integrated Post-Secondary Education Society of Alberta (IPSE).

As the National President of the Canadian Somali Congress, Ahmed Hussen is deeply committed to the Canadian Somali community. Regarded as an expert in Somali affairs, Hussen is regularly asked by the national media to comment on issues facing the community and the peace process in Somalia. Hussen has always demonstrated a keen interest in improving the community around him.

Hussen was the founder of the Regent Park Community Council in Toronto, which is the official voice of the residents on matters like the $500 million revitalization and redevelopment project in Regent Park. This Project is the largest urban public housing redevelopment project in Canada. His success as a community activist was recognized by the Toronto Star newspaper on January 1st, 2004 as one of ten individuals in Toronto who have made substantial contributions in a number of important fields. He was also awarded a Queen's Jubilee medal and the Ontario Non-Profit Housing Authority Award for his effective advocacy work in Regent Park. Ahmed is involved with the Canadian International Peace Project as its Director of Communications. He has served Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty as a special assistant in charge of issues management, communications and policy.

Under Hussen's guidance, the Canadian Somali Congress has partnered with the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canadian International Peace Project to create the Canadian Somali-Jewish Mentorship Project. This is the first national project in Canada between the Jewish community and a large Muslim community.

An expert in fitness, Amanda Small is a physical education teacher at Memorial Composite High School in Stony Plain, Canada and coaches a number of sports teams for the school.

Impacted by the work of the Global Enrichment Foundation, Small established the “Live Free” group, which encourages her students to be more socially responsible by fundraising and creating awareness of the needs within Somalia.

Small led a Community Empowerment Project to sponsor a high school girls basketball team in Somalia, the Sakaroos, providing them with equipment, uniforms and place to practice. She is passionate about creating leadership through sport. In her spare time she plays competitive hockey, baseball, ball hockey, cross trains, weight trains, and coaches.

Leah Miller is a native of Ottawa, Ontario and after extensive travel is happy to be home. After completing an undergraduate at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Leah set out to tackle a Master of Arts in Human Security and Development from Royal Roads University in Victoria. While completing her MA, with a focus in Theatre for Development and Theatre for HIV Education, she volunteered and travelled in East Africa.

Living in Uganda for most of 2008, Leah worked closely with a theatre group whose members have been widowed and orphaned by HIV/AIDS and who now focused their art on HIV education for secondary students. Theatre and music allow people to address subjects that are otherwise taboo in everyday society. Working with this group of brave women and children was one of the most inspiring things Leah has ever been a part of.

Recently departing from her position as Assistant to a Member of Canadian Parliament, Leah is excited to join the Global Enrichment Foundation (GEF) and once again be part of an organization which makes a positive difference in her own life as well as in the lives of those less fortunate. Working with such an amazing team at the GEF, Leah knows that more inspiring times are just over the horizon.

Grace brings a capacious amount of compassion and flexibility to the GEF team. These skills she honed through years of juggling a career in office administration while moving her family across North America for her husband of 30 years' demanding career, and raising two amazing (and now grown) children.

Being a close family friend of the Lindhout's for over 20 years, she found herself in 2008 and 2009 doing everything and anything to ensure Amanda made it safely home after she was kidnapped in Somalia. This event forever changed Grace's career focus and she stays with the GEF knowing that she is a part of an organization that will - in some small way - help to make a positive change in the world.

Grace lives in Sylvan Lake, Alberta.

Amal Abdullahi Bainah is a graduate of McMaster University where she studied Psychology in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. As a university student she was one of the founding members of the Somali Student Association which served Somali academics in addition to the broader Hamilton community. While in Hamilton, Amal focused her community efforts on new immigrants and refugees working with key stakeholders such as the Hamilton Community Foundation where she conducted a study on the city’s diversity as well as the City of Hamilton where she worked in the equity department and did outreach with various communities. Her passion for working with vulnerable and marginalized people led her to an internship with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Dadaab Kenya. Since then, Amal has used her experience as a Human Resources consultant with the City of Edmonton in Canada where she has often supported the immigrant outreach and consulted on diversity and inclusiveness matters.  She is a committee member of the Students for Refugees, a project started by former Somali refugees from Dadaab Kenya where she represents the western region of Canada. Her hope is to help create communities that are sustainable through skills transfer, resource mobilization and knowledge sharing as well as helping newcomers and refugees access the resources they need to integrate into broader society. She believes that education is the vehicle for a brighter more sustainable future for young people, especially young women and has joined the Somali Women’s Scholarship Program as a step towards making this a reality for those who need it the most.

Amal Issa was born in Somalia, but was raised in Edmonton Alberta. She is 22 years of age and a political science graduate from the University of Alberta. She has been a youth worker at SCERDO (Somali Canadian Education and Rural Development Organization) for three years. Amal has been a very active member of the Somali community for many years.  She will be pursuing her masters in Environmental Studies in the fall at York University. She is interested in exploring a wide variety of issues surrounding social justice and the environment. Amal believes the women’s scholarship program is an excellent example of how empowerment through education, leads to opportunities to work towards long term, sustainable change. 

Fatima Ismail is a fourth year undergraduate student in the Faculty of Science at the University of Alberta. Her major is Psychology, with a minor Sociology. Upon completing her degree she hopes to pursue Masters in Public Health. In the future she hopes to be working in a health related profession, and perhaps even work in Somalia. She loves giving back to her community, and works effortlessly to promote sustainable development and women’s issues.

Najma Kahiye was born in Somalia but raised in Edmonton, Alberta. She is a BScN student at the University of Alberta. She has been an active member of the community from a young age. Her goals include obtaining a MBA in health management and working in health care policy-making. She hopes one day to retain the necessary skills to be an asset in developing her homelands health care infrastructure from the vantage point of the government. Najma believes the woman’s scholarship program is paving the way for restructuring a climate of hostility regarding educating women to one of support and necessity. She strongly supports this program, because it allows women to makeup the changing mosaic of Somali society rather then melting into the background.

Sahra Kahiye is a recent graduate from the Respiratory Therapy program in Edmonton, Alberta Canada. With her ancestral roots in Somalia, she has endeavored to better the Somali community through her role as a volunteer with Somali youth. She is a active Somali Youth Worker & Mentor. She spent most of her life working with and for the Somali community, with programs catering mostly to young Somali girls. Her mission is to foster the next generation of Somali Youth for a better future and a better people. She is currently attending the University of Alberta to complete her degree in in Health Sciences. She intends to study Medicine, specializing in Pediatrics. Sahra is honored to be involved in the Somali Women's Scholarship program, she feels this is an amazing opportunity to support home grown education and advocate for the growth of educational infrastructure in Somalia.

As a University of Alberta student finishing her last year as an undergraduate in economics, Sudi Barré was inspired to join Global enrichment foundation, after witnessing the great efforts the foundation poured into ‘convoy for hope’ in the recent relief efforts for Somalia's worst famine in 60 years. This inspired Sudi to get involved and helped organize a well-spirited benefit concert and dinner, with the support of many wonderful people.As a Somali woman who advocates feminism, Sudi is proud to be apart of Somali women’s scholarship.

Born in Somalia, Hodan Yusuf and her family immigrated to Canada in 1994. She is a recent graduate of York University, majoring in International Development Studies with a focus on Refugee and Migration Studies. She is currently pursuing her Masters in Education at OISE at the University of Toronto, focusing on a wide range of issues affecting the Somali Canadian community.  In the past couple of years, she has worked extensively with newcomer youth, with mental health issues, with and victims of torture from war torn countries.  She was one of the organizers of the Walk for Somalia in 2009, a youth led initiative to help raise awareness and funds for internally displaced people in the Afgooye refugee camp. In 2011, Hodan and her team once again mobilized to organize a Walk from Toronto to Ottawa, in response to the recent famine declared in Somalia. She was also active in the campaign to elect a Somali school board trustee to meet the needs of the growing Somali community in Toronto. She currently works as the Education Program Coordinator at the Centre for Youth Development and Mentoring Services, a non-profit community organization working with racialized youth in Toronto. Having had a strong interest in education in Somalia, Hodan is very excited to work with the Global Enrichment Foundation so she can continue to give back to her community, both in Canada and Somalia.

He has worked with Equity Bank Limited for three years in customer service, marketing and IT departments. During his time with Equity he was involved in the implementation of many projects; one of them being the biggest project that the bank has ever undertaken, shifting from its old banking system to its new banking which has the biggest and most efficient database. He is a founding Director of SolarGen Technologies Limited, a Green Energy Company and Tovuti Group Limited, an ICT company. He was working as a Project Manager for Orca Bay Data Solutions Limited overseeing a number of projects before joining the Global Enrichment Foundation as a volunteer then as a project manager for the Convoy for Hope project in Somalia.

He has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from the University of Nairobi. He also holds the following professional qualifications; A+, N+ and Cisco Certified Network Associate (CCNA) certification.

Info coming soon...

Omar has worked with Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – France Somalia Mission as Liaison & Coordination Officer for a year in supporting and assisting the organization in contextual and security analysis, communication, reporting and briefings at the heights of the political and security situations in Somalia at the time Sheikh Shariff led Transitional Federal Government (TFG) was established and the opposition Islamists Groups sprung up. He has contributed to monitoring and analysis of the political, security and humanitarian context in Somalia to allow the organization to develop effective operations and reach to the vulnerable communities in the war-torn Somalia.

He also worked with The Northern Management Consultants (NMC), a research and management training consultants firm providing a broad spectrum of services in wide range of fields towards the realization of national development goals through policy advice, research and training as a Research Officer for 3 years in the Great Horn of Africa where he established a team to enhance the capacity of organizations, firms, individuals, corporate bodies and government and supplement and partner with development agencies or missions in responding to development challenges and achieving those goals. He is the founding member and Secretary General of Wajir South Professional Association (WASPA), an advocacy association in the Northern Kenya that advocates for the rights of the voiceless. He was working with the Development Initiative Access Link (DIAL) as a Project Field Coordinator overseeing projects in Lower Juba, Somalia and Puntland State of Somalia before joining the Global Enrichment Foundation as the Assistant Project Manager (Operations and Procurement) for the Convoy for Hope in Somalia.

He has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science & Public Administration from the University of Nairobi and currently working on his Masters degree in Diplomacy at the Institute of Diplomacy and International Studies (The University of Nairobi). He also holds a Diploma in Community Health Nursing from the Kenya Medical Training College.

A passionate believer in the rights of every human being, Feisal spends most of his time in community outreach programs. He has been involved in civic education and providing legal aid to help and empower those members of the society who are not in a position to stand for their rights.
Throughout his time in the University, he has been a volunteer with various Non-Governmental Organizations that are involved in trying to breach the gap between the rich and the poor.  Touched by media reports of the drought and famine situation in Somalia, he volunteered with the Global Enrichment Foundation in the Convoy for Hope and is currently the Communication Officer for the Convoy of Hope.
A holder of Bachelor of Law from the University of Nairobi and a Certified Public Accountant I from Vision Institute of Professional Studies, Feisal believes that education can change the face of society and the Somalia situation.

Bashir brings years of experience in finance and the  private sector to the Global Enrichment Foundation. He has worked with East Africa Properties Limited for 2 years where he managed all the financial matters and was tasked with outsourcing various activities for the company and maintaining fundamental financial management. He is among the founder members of the Kamasom Construction Co. Ltd, a company that specializes in construction works. He later started his own Sabrin Beauty Centre, a vibrant cosmetics and garment centre in Nairobi, Kenya.
He joins Global Enrichment Foundation as Finance Officer in its Somalia the Convoy for Hope program and is married with two children.

He has worked with Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia as a Logistics officer for ten years where he excelled in handling fleets and logistics issues of the hotel in the war-ravaged capital city of Somalia. He struggled to ensure the logistical issues of the hotel were manned properly despite the security challenges in the capital city.
Before joining the Global Enrichment Foundation, Hiddig worked with Alpha schools as an English and French teacher and is now a Logistics Officer for the Convoy for Hope project in Somalia.
He holds Diploma in Logistics Management and Linguistics and is currently pursuing Business Administration at the Indian Ocean University in Mogadishu, Somalia. He is also married with children.

Info coming soon...

Info coming soon...

Jules Nugteren has a passion for web design and a drive to help those in need, which impelled her to help Amanda Lindhout in any way she could. Graduating with a 4.0 GPA from the Art Insitute of Pittsburgh and putting herself through school by styling hair, Jules stepped into the web design world in 2002.

Jules loves challenges, including ensuring her clients attain top ranking on Google. What started as a simple website update for her husband quickly became a love affair with designing on the web. She not only has an eye for design through mixing and matching colours and effects, but has a deft hand with coding as well.

Born in the UK, Julie McArthur came to Canada at age 14. After obtaining her diploma in multimedia production from Thunder Bay’s Confederation College, she joined Toronto’s advertising world as an assistant to the producer and video editor at Grey Worldwide.

She then worked at Arc Productions, one of the world’s leading CG animation and visual effects studios, on Everyone’s Hero, an animated film produced by the late Christopher Reeve.

A job transfer for her RCMP officer husband brought Julie to Canmore, Alberta, where she honed her design skills for a year at The Banff Centre and launched her freelance graphic design business, Wild Ginger Design, in 2009.