HuffPost Greatest Person Of The Day: Alia Mohamed Gives Somali Orphans A Home

While most of her peers are enjoying their free weekend time, Alia Mohamed spends her Saturdays on Skype. She will listen dutifully at her computer as one of 50 Somalian children recalls what he or she learned that week -- anything from a sentence or two in English to a new recipe.

"It's the most tremendous feeling ever; it's just amazing," said Mohamed, a biology major at Marymount University in Arlington, Va. "I always ask the kids what they want to be when they grow up."

The 22-year-old Mohamed is the founder of Mercy to Mankind, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to aiding impoverished, orphaned children in drought-ravaged Somalia. The foundation's four board members and three volunteers -- all U.S.-based students -- aim to remotely provide food, shelter and school items for an orphanage they founded in Mogadishu, the war-torn nation's largest city and its capital. At present, Mohamed's orphanage houses 50 children between the ages of three and 13, and an additional 150 from a separate organization also attend classes and receive aid through Mercy to Mankind.

"It was part of my upbringing to give back," said Mohamed, a Somali native who fled the country with her family when she was just a year old. Still, Mohamed wasn't overly concerned with goings-on in her homeland until July 2009, when she attended a Somali youth conference that encouraged humanitarian involvement among its participants. "I was just so eager to do something … I really wanted to take action," she recalled.

Take a look at some photos of Mercy to Mankind's work in Somalia, then scroll down to keep reading:

Source: The Huffington Post