Somalia is Aynab Abdullahi’s native country. But he considers America home.
The 37-year-old SeaTac resident moved to the United States when he was 12.
“I’m as American as apple pie,” he says.
Getting area Somalis to feel attached to their new home is part of Abdullahi’s goal as executive director of the Ogaden-American Community, a new nonprofit in downtown Renton.
“We are here, this is our country now,” Abdullahi says. “…that’s the message we’re trying to get to people. We’re Somalis, but we’re here.”
Abdullahi and three other volunteers deliver that message each day to those seeking help from the nonprofit at its office on South Tobin Street.
As the organization’s name implies, many of those seeking help are from Somali-Ogaden, a dry, poverty-stricken region in Eastern Ethiopia. About 6 million Somalis live in that area, which is a little larger than Texas.
Somalis are spread throughout the Horn of Africa — in Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Somalia proper.
Visitors come to the Ogaden-American Community seeking all sorts of help, from shelter, to jobs, to youth counseling.
It was slow going at first, but the office’s traffic increased after a recent open house attended by a slew of city officials.
“That made everything happen,” Abdullahi says.
The group is struggling financially, but Abdullahi says it’s doing
well, given its meager resources.
Sixteen Somalis came to the office for help during just part of a recent week. One woman was homeless and wanted shelter for herself and her two kids. Another woman was living in a homeless shelter and wanted help filling out immigration papers. One man had just lost his job and wanted to sign up for unemployment. One mother wanted to get her teenage son to start going to school again.
Somalis are an “emerging population” in Renton. So says Karen Bergsvik, Renton’s Human Services manager. She said the Renton Department of Social and Health Services Office served 7,247 families in March. Of those families, 206 were Somali. The Renton School District serves 4,534 students whose home language is not English. Somalian is the home language of 276 of those students.
Most of the area’s Somalis — Abdullahi says 90 to 95 percent — came to the United States as refugees. The government of the East African country collapsed in 1991 and has yet to recover.
For many Somalis, the government’s collapse meant years in African refugee camps and no formal education.
“They are very behind in terms of education, in terms of cultural understanding, on so many levels they’re behind,” Abdullahi says of these Somali refugees and immigrants. “We’re trying to help them come up to speed.”
Refugees and immigrants from Somalia and its outlying areas continue moving to the United States today, but in smaller numbers since travel restrictions were enacted after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Of those Somalis who move to Renton, the Ogaden-American Community is especially concerned with the youth.
“We have a particular focus on youth,” Abdullahi told the open-house crowd. “We believe Somali youth are in need of intervention and counseling to steer them in the right direction.”
He says the right direction for those youth is away from gangs and toward better relationships with their parents.
Children in Africa are raised to be submissive toward their parents, while here children are raised to be independent and make decisions for themselves, Abdullahi says.
This conflict in values creates a tug of war in the family unit, and results in parents and children becoming frustrated with each other.
The Ogaden-American Community is trying to mend those tensions through counseling and after-school programs. The nonprofit seeks to do that mending before gangs become an attraction.
Abdullahi says that gangs are a problem for Somalis in cities such as Minneapolis but not in Renton.
Still, life in the United States can be difficult for new immigrants. Difficult even for older immigrants like Abdullahi, whose family came to the United States in 1984, when Somalia was stable. His father moved the family to Colorado so he could get his Ph.D. in agriculture.
Abdullahi expected life in America to be gold and shiny, like in the movies. But he soon realized success takes hard work.
“It’s not like Hollywood,” he said. “… It takes a while to get over the shock.”
The welcoming attitude Renton’s city officials displayed at the recent open house should help ease that shock for area Somalis.
Mayor Denis Law told the crowd of men, women and children that he is proud of Renton’s diverse community. Several other spokespeople for the City of Renton, Renton School District and Renton Chamber of Commerce said they are willing to help the Somali community any way they can.
The city has a business plan that includes helping to integrate all of its diverse population groups, City Council member Greg Taylor said.
“… I assure you that we’re here to serve you,” Chamber of Commerce President Bill Taylor told the crowd.
That support is good news for the Ogaden-American Community, which in the short term wants to simply get its organization up and running, and in the long term wants to serve as many Renton people as it can.
“We are open to everyone,” Abdullahi says.
OGADEN-AMERICAN COMMUNITY
The Ogaden-American Community is a nonprofit offering social-service assistance to everyone, but especially Somalis. The nonprofit is seeking donations of money and computers and computer software to help start an after-school program. The nonprofit’s office is at 85 S. Tobin St. The office is open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. The phone number is 425-430-0744.
