40 Graduates, 29 Villages, One Pathway Into the Digital Economy
Earlier this year, the GAROBITS Digital Academy in Garowe celebrated its newest cohort. 40 young Somalis completed intensive training in graphic design and video editing, two of the most in-demand creative skills in the regional digital economy.
The graduates were not drawn from the city center. They came from 29 villages across Bosaso, Lasanod, Badhan, and Eyl, communities where structured digital training has historically been out of reach and where youth unemployment continues to limit what young people can build for themselves and their families.
The GAROBITS programme was designed to change that.
Reaching Young Talent in 29 Villages
The geographic spread of the cohort tells its own story. 29 separate villages across four major districts of Puntland sent young people to Garowe to take part in the training. For many, this was their first structured opportunity to learn skills that translate directly into freelance work, agency placements, and creative industry careers.
Bringing graduates from this many villages into a single cohort took deliberate effort, in outreach, in selection, and in supporting learners to actually arrive and stay through a full training cycle. The result is a graduating class with roots across Puntland, not concentrated in one urban pocket.
Skills Built for the Market That Exists
The GAROBITS curriculum focused on two areas where demand is real and growing:
Graphic design for organizations across the Horn of Africa that need visual identity work, social media assets, and publication design.
Video editing for the rapidly expanding content economy, from local production houses to NGO communications units to creator-led media.
These are not abstract skills. They are the day-to-day work that fills inboxes at every consultancy, INGO, and media company operating in the region.
A Real Setup for Real Work
To make sure the training translated into income, every graduate left the programme with two concrete supports:
A modern computer capable of running the design and editing software they had trained on, removing the equipment barrier that often stops graduates from taking on real work after training ends.
An internship placement with major companies, giving each graduate a structured pathway from classroom into professional practice.
This combination matters. Without the equipment, the training stalls. Without the internship, the graduate enters a saturated job market with no signal of professional experience. GAROBITS bridges both gaps in a single programme.
The Partnership Behind the Programme
GAROBITS Digital Academy is delivered by Shaqodoon Organization, with funding from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) through the Somali Resilience Program (SomReP).
The programme sits within a broader effort to tackle youth unemployment across Somalia by equipping young people with skills the digital economy is actually buying. Shaqodoon designs and delivers the training and connects graduates to internship hosts. SomReP brings the resilience programming infrastructure that links digital skills work to longer-term household and community stability. Sida's funding makes it possible to reach young people in remote villages who would otherwise be excluded from this kind of investment.
Part of a Wider Story
GAROBITS in Garowe is the Puntland anchor of a model that Shaqodoon is now running in multiple regions. The Hargabits Digital Academy in Somaliland recently graduated 74 students under the same SIDA III programme, also reaching learners from drought-affected districts. Together, the two academies represent a deliberate commitment to bring digital skills training to the parts of Somalia where youth opportunity has been most constrained.
The graduates of GAROBITS now join a growing pipeline of young Somalis stepping into the digital economy with certified skills, working equipment, and professional pathways already in motion.
Their communities are counting on them. The programme was built so that they are ready.