Social Relief Organization (SRO) is a non-political, non-racial and Non-profit making local humanitarian and development organization found in 2004 and operates in the North West Zone of Somalia, we responds to emergency humanitarian and development needs and assists the Somali communities especially those living within the regions of Sool, Sanaag and Togdheer towards self-reliance, We works with destitute local communities through sustainable community development programs to overcome effect of drought, water scarcity, food security and livelihood recovery, resource based conflict and other social problems.
Currently our major programmes are Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Mother and Child Health programmes; in the WASH sector SRO is an active partner with United Nations Childrenís Fund (UNICEF) and Norwegian Peopleís Aid (NPA) while in the Health we are partnered with Kaalmo Health Organization (KHO) Diaspora organization based in Oslo, Norway and Birthing Kits Foundation Australia (BKFA) which Only supplies free delivery kits with No funding.
We partnered with NPA in the year 2009 and to date NPA is dedicated in the finding solution of the water scarcity in the regions by creating new water sources like drilling of Boreholes, Excavation of new earth water catchments, Communal water berkads and rehabilitation of the existing non-functioning water facilities and provision of hygiene and sanitation training to improve the hygiene status among the target communities, so far NPA drilled and equipped over Five (5)Boreholes, conduct Emergency Life Saving Intervention especially; Distribution of Emergency Life Saving Water Trucking to the worst drought hit areas and distribute Non-Food Items to the Internally Displaced Persons affected by conflicts especially those from South Central Somalia and also within the regions of operation.
SRO partnered with UNICEF late in the 2012 and so far UNICEF funded 2 big projects of constructing water supply system for Buhoodle communities of Togdheer region in 2013 by enabling the vulnerable IDPs, Schools and MCHs and the general community to have access to water service from water kiosks which is supplied and installed from Buhoodle borehol1 of 7km away from the town and in 2014 they did the same for the community of Ceegaag and also triggered 15 villages through Community Led Total Sanitation(CLTS) approach and to date UNICEF is dedicated to reduce the human suffering and end the child right abuses due to lack of access to safe, clean drinkable water and improve the hygiene and sanitation status in Schools, MCHs and to achieve Open Defecation Free (ODF)status within the north west zone as well as the entire Somalia.
On the other hand SRO works with Kaalmo Health Organization (KHO) to improve the health problems facing the communities of Sool, Sanaag and Togdheer region, Among the major problem in the health sector is the mother child birth complications, lack of enough midwives and poor health infrastructure. KHO annually trains over 15 unskilled midwives selected from the worst affected villages by sponsoring them and also giving them monthly incentives for their upkeep, constructed new brand Administration office Block for Las-anod General Hospital, Rehabilitated Female ward, Operation theatre room, HIV laboratory room, Feeding programme for the T.B in-patients and on the hand disseminating T.B health information through publishing of T.B Booklets. The journey to solve the health problems of the community in the northern regions of Somalia has just begin and needs more input, We are also partnered with Birthing Kits Foundation Australia (BKFA) which supplies free Birthing Kits through DHL to Hargeisa and we contribute in the transportation and distribution to all villages, BKFA is dedicated to ensure safe birth by using clean delivery kits and we give the kits to the midwives that we train annually, BKFA only give free supplies.
Social Relief Organization (SRO) has the full mandate to operate and serve the vulnerable communities and we have also the full support of the community chiefs (Garadhs), Relevant government Authorities and the general community.
SRO ís policy is to work with all the community regardless of their existing social strata which always rule out any discrimination among the weak group of the community, all the projects we implemented served the general interest of the entire target community and this was made effective by considering the minority, marginalized and Internally Displaced groups.
SRO engages all the community in all the stages of the project life cycle which will always leads to active participation and contribution and thus transparency in the communal work and eventually leads to the good governance, just resource sharing and leadership within the community and this will give rise to project ownership and sustainability.
The organization has well qualified, experience and dedicated staffs that have been running the organizationís all sector programme across the regions, and most of the staffs are devoted to key programmes while others are based at the field office to ensure that all the need analysis and project results are achieved within the specified time frame.