By Farhiya Fidow

The day ICT came to my mind, it wasn’t about computers. It was about saving lives. It was about making women safer.

When I was in high school in Mogadishu, I began to understand what information technology could do. I remember thinking: what if there were a way for women to report violence anonymously? How many could be protected, how many could be saved?

From that moment, I was drawn to IT. But I quickly noticed that very few women were in this field. I asked my teacher why this was the case, and he told me it was a challenging faculty. I asked him what would happen if I pursued IT, and he laughed and asked if my mother would allow it. I replied, “It’s not my mother who needs to learn IT, it’s me,” since I was already excelling in subjects that required strong calculation skills.

In my secondary school, every time we completed class and went home, I would tell my mother that I wanted to join the faculty of IT. Her response was always, “My daughter, I want you to be a doctor in gynecology. Please go to the faculty of medicine; you will be a famous doctor, and I will be proud of you.” I told my mother that I was good at calculations and had a passion for IT. However, she didn’t accept my suggestion and shared my decision with my cousin, who had graduated from the faculty of IT.

My cousin was surprised by my decision. He would come to our home, sit next to me, and say, “This faculty is not for ladies. Please listen to my advice and change your decision.” I asked him what other faculties he would advise me to join. He suggested, “You can either go to the faculty of education or medicine. IT is not a faculty for ladies; please change your mind.”

I asked him why he didn’t want me to pursue IT while he had graduated from IT himself. He replied, “Because you are a lady, and you will not be able to complete that faculty.” I insisted on my decision and told him, “If you can do it, I can do it too.”

When we completed our secondary school, I was one of the top ten students in our class. As a reward, we were offered scholarships to study abroad. There were assessments to determine scholarship winners, and surprisingly, I won a partial scholarship for the faculty of medicine 😊. Once again, I had to face my mother, who felt she had finally won. She asked me to forget about IT and join medicine since we wouldn’t have to pay all the costs for the faculty.

I told her again that I couldn’t pursue something I wasn’t interested in. People were congratulating me because medicine is a prestigious and challenging field, but I didn’t listen to them. I needed to follow my own passion and pursue what I truly wanted.

My mother finally accepted my decision and gave me her blessing. One day, my mother and I went to the scholarship provider’s office to discuss changing my faculty from medicine to IT. There was a long queue of scholarship winners and their parents. Everyone was excited about their children’s scholarships.

While waiting, a man and his son were standing next to us. He asked my mother, “Are you one of the scholarship winners?” She replied, “Yes.” He then asked, “Is this your daughter?” She said, “Yes, she won a scholarship, but she doesn’t like the current faculty, so we need to change it.”

He responded, “Mmm, but why are you wasting your time and money on a girl?” I wanted to say something to that rude man, but I remained silent out of respect for my elders, as my mother had taught me.

My mother, however, didn’t stay quiet. She asked him, “Why? What’s wrong with girls going to university and learning?” He responded, “She is a girl, and she is here to just marry and have children 😊 nothing else, so don’t waste your efforts on her.”

After hearing those rude words that day, I resolved to pursue only IT. I was determined to prove him wrong. With renewed courage, I set my sights on excelling in the faculty of IT. I worked hard and eventually became one of the top ten students at the university.

I consistently ranked as the number one or number two student in my faculty every time we had exams. I remember male students, in the same faculty, coming to me for explanations on various subjects.

After graduating from university, I returned to Somalia. People were surprised and skeptical about my job prospects, as most local companies did not believe a woman could work as an IT professional. I applied for numerous IT-related job advertisements and finally secured an ICT Officer position at Amal Charity Foundation in Mogadishu.