Once a refugee fleeing war, I knew exactly how it felt to need help but not receive it. I decided to be a force for good.

Exclusive | 5 min read | As told to Kristi Eaton | USA

As the wind whipped across my car, I felt it sway just a little. I was on my way to class and feeling grateful to be in warm comfort amid the brutal Ohio winter.

Just then, I spotted a woman walking along the side of the road, her thin robes and hijab no contender for the bone-chilling weather outside.

I knew instantly she was a recent Somali immigrant, or a refugee like me. It was easy to tell she was from the same community because of how she dressed and carried herself. Part of our shared culture is to help those in need, so I pulled up and asked if she needed a ride. 

She nodded gratefully and climbed in. I could feel the cold air pouring off her as we started to talk. ‘Why are you walking instead of driving?’ I quizzed. ‘And where is your coat?’

It turned out she had been in the United States for eight months but didn’t have a car, so she walked daily to her ESL - English as a Second Language - class. An hour each way.

Her name was Anbaro.

Shared experience

Anbaro’s situation took me back to the time I’d left Somalia as a teenager, living in Ethiopia and Kenta before arriving in the USA as a refugee. My family had fled the war there that had left many without jobs and basic resources. It had been a frightening, desperate time. 

Anbaro’s backstory wasn’t too dissimilar. Now, despite finding safety thousands of miles from the war, she was alone and in dire straits. 

She had neither the language skills nor the resources to get on her feet. As we chatted, I learned she loved taking care of children and dreamt of opening a home daycare centre but hadn’t been able to finish the relatively straight-forward online application process. 

She didn’t know how to enter her information and had at one point even tried to push paper into the computer, because the concept of this technology was so new to her.

I decided to help, so I gave Anbaro my number and said, ‘Let’s do this together.’ Every morning, I picked Anbaro up and drove her to the ESL class. I helped her figure out how to become a home daycare provider, which took about three weeks to complete through online registration.

The start

I was studying social care at university myself, and it felt good to help someone. Wasn’t that the aim of my intended vocation? What I didn’t expect was that helping Anbaro would start a movement of sorts in Columbus. Anbaro gave my number to another immigrant, who gave it to a refugee and within three weeks, 34 families had called on me for help.

I had four young children at home and was a full-time student but I was determined to help everyone I could. Between classes, and juggling childcare, I drove to each of the families’ homes and helped them apply for jobs or register for medical care.

Sometimes, it was as simple as teaching them how to navigate their new country’s payment systems. Some refugees didn’t know how to pay rent - their need for information we take for granted was that basic. 

My help in the community was rewarding but exhausting. It was taking a toll financially too. And so, instead of spending money on petrol driving from one stranger’s home to the next, I put the cash aside and rented a small office within walking distance of the Somali community, where refugees and immigrants could come to me. 

Hundreds came. The volume of help needed in the community was so high, I recruited two part-time volunteers. I had met someone through the local mosque who was in a text group with members of her faith. She sent a digital cry for help and two people volunteered: Idil and Hodan. They were refugees as well and among the kindest people I had ever met.

Most of the refugees we supported didn’t know our names, so they kept calling us ‘Caawiye Yaashayadii’ - Somali for our helpers.

OUR HELPERS

Working together, we noticed a pattern of help needed amongst the community: refugees didn’t know how to navigate the various system in the United States and often didn’t speak English. 

The situation in Somalia had left so many people without jobs or homes, who were now desperate for independence and work in their new homeland. But the reality was, these people who had left their country - and often their families - behind, were free from war and famine, but now lost, without any support or social network.

By the end of 2012, I was completing assessments in people’s homes and was saddened by how many of the refugees in the Columbus Somali community were suffering from intense loneliness and stress. 

I was so moved by their plight that I founded my charity Our Helpers shortly after to offer help, resources and training programmes. I now have a team of 24, made up of four regular plus 20 ad-hoc volunteers. We help all immigrants, with many of our clients Somali.

We’ve never advertised our work as people have always found us through word of mouth. We are happy to help them with our simple problem-solving philosophy: we identify a problem and find a solution.

OUR LIGHT

In 2017, there were nine homicides within the Ohio Somali community – young men hurting other young men – so we created a youth programme called Our Light.

The concept was simple: the more youth thrive, the brighter they are and the more they can succeed in a new society.

We ran basketball teams and workshop programmes in tandem. Young Somali refugees all wanted to shoot hoops at our basketball courts but the caveat was: if they didn’t come to the workshops to learn how to become better citizens, they couldn’t play in our teams.

The workshops taught these young men how to avoid drugs and violence and become positive community members.

In just the first year, 80 young men attended Our Light, and the homicide rate within our Somali community dropped to zero. It was no small feat and the success meant we were recognised and funded by the City of Columbus for 2019.

Now, it’s an annual, funded summer programme for males aged 15 to 22 from local communities. They come to us for our workshops whilst also building friendships and playing sport. It has been a balm for the mind and bodies of those young men suffering the fallout and trauma of their troubled and often violent pasts. 

This year, Our Light is on hold due to Coronavirus but we hope to pick it up again as soon as possible.

growing fAmily

Between starting my charity and now, I put my social care studies on hold, and have added three more children to my own family. I’m a mum of seven, but I tell people I’m a mum of eight - Our Helpers is my 8th child because like my children, this is a 24/7 job and I don’t get paid to do it. I do it because I love it and am passionate about the cause.

All the time and effort is worth it when I see people’s lives starting to change for the better. I meet people who were once homeless but now have their own homes and income. I see people who were so depressed they wouldn’t answer their doors, but now work full-time and lead fulfilling lives. These transformations in our community are so rewarding for me.

It’s hard to know exactly how many Somalis live in Columbus but we believe it’s anywhere between 45,000 and 70,000. To make sure we get a more accurate count, I worked with the Census Bureau this year to make sure there will soon be an option for Somali on the Census form.

Columbus is a diverse and welcoming city. People tend to migrate in groups, so you might find that one Somali family follows a friend here, and so on, and that’s why so many Somali people have found a home in Columbus.

In a way, I’ve become the bridge between the community’s previous life in Somalia, and their new one here in their adoptive country. I’m often the person people come to whenever they have a problem or something testing is going on. I’m told people in the community say, ‘If you have a problem, go to Hodan.’

It’s my privilege to help because I strongly believe in treating people how I would want to be treated. I was humbled to be chosen as the Somali female to be depicted in an 11-storey painted mural on the Graduate Hotel Building in Columbus. It was unveiled last autumn and took my breath away. It was emotional to see what the work I have carried out from the heart has meant to the wider community. 

Bringing columbus together

I have also helped start a Somali Culture Festival in Columbus, which is now in its third year. It started because I met a lot of non-immigrants who didn’t know any Somalis. It made me realise that although we are all ultimately part of one larger Columbus community, we remain divided by our own micro-communities. 

The main reason for this Somali festival is to ‘unbox’ people and share the different cultures, food and entertainment to forge strong cross-community connections.  

Whether I like it or not, there are negative misconceptions about the Somali people, like we don’t want jobs and are OK being on welfare. We want to work and secure jobs, but it’s hard when we don’t know the language. The bottom line is our people do not want to be in the welfare system - by our very ingrained nature, we are an entrepreneurial people. 

I want Our Helpers to keep moving forward, doing, being and creating. In that vein, I’m hoping to make a documentary about the contributions of the Somali people in Ohio so that the wider community can learn about what we’ve brought to the society we are now a part of and see both how much we have to give - and how much we want to give it. 

• Hodan Mohammed is the founder of Our Helpers. You can learn more about its mission on the charity’s website.

Like this article? Please help us commission more like it by donating the cost of a cuppa on Ko-fi. Sharing this article on your social media, and following us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter are also a great way to support our independent, self-funded platform.

We encourage debate, but trolls are not welcome. Please read our comments policy before contributing.