Da'wah Blog

US Somalis move to ease misery of famine back home

2011-07-31T14:19:00.000-07:00

MINNEAPOLIS — Mohamed Hassan gets emotional when he hears about the famine devastating Somalia, recalling his own months-long walk from Mogadishu to Kenya two decades ago as a teenager fleeing the civil war.

In this photo taken Monday, July 25, 2011, Imam Hassan Mohamud, of the Islamic Da’wah Center in St. Paul, contacts those who pledged money to help those suffering from the famine in Somalia, in Minneapolis. Mohamud is part of an ad hoc committee that is working with American Refugee Committee to help those suffering in Somalia. (AP Photo/Amy Forliti)

In this photo taken Monday, July 25, 2011, Hassan Mohamud, the imam at Islamic Da'wah Center in St. Paul, left, and Mohamed Hassan, a community leader coordinating local response to the famine in Somalia, work to contact individuals who pledged to donate to famine relief efforts. Mohamud and Hassan are part of an ad hoc committee that is working with American Refugee Committee to help those suffering in Somalia. (AP Photo/Amy Forliti)

In this photo taken July 25, 2011, volunteers at the American Refugee Committee count donations in Minneapolis. The money raised through efforts of the Somali diaspora in Minnesota will go toward relief efforts in Somalia, where a famine threatens millions. (AP Photo/Amy Forliti)

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Now Hassan and other Somalis here are digging deep to help.

"I've lived through starvations, hunger. I've lived in a refugee camp," Hassan said. "Because of my relationship to the people of Somalia back home, but also because of past experiences, I feel the pain. I cannot afford to sit back and watch people go through these experiences."

From Facebook campaigns to car washes and concerts to local collection sites, Minnesota's Somali community — the nation's largest at an estimated 25,000 people — is raising tens of thousands of dollars to help the starving masses.

Though an overall total isn't known, Somalis have helped raised roughly $100,000 for the American Refugee Committee, including $47,000 at a single event last week. Another group, Amoud Foundation, reported raising $94,000 from the Twin Cities in less than two weeks.

"I don't think we've ever seen an emergency like this where the diaspora is at the center of the response," said Daniel Wordsworth, the president and chief executive of American Refugee Committee. "They are all taking a lead ... We don't have to convince the Somalis to care. They care more than we ever will."

But Minnesota Somalis are taking precautions. The state has been the center of a long-running federal investigation into the recruiting of Americans to join al-Shabab, a terror group responsible for much of the violence in Somalia. As part of that investigation, two Minnesota women were accused last summer of soliciting money and clothes for refugees in Somalia but steering the money instead to al-Shabab.

To guard against that, Somalis are carefully partnering with or donating to long-established relief organizations.

Before donating, people "have to think twice," said Hassan Mohamud, the imam at Islamic Da'wah Center in St. Paul and an organizer of relief efforts. "Everybody wants to pay and everyone is generous to pay, but they want to make sure they won't be in trouble if they give this."

"The community is very careful," said Safia Yasin Farah, who started a Facebook page, Somalis Without Borders for Drought Relief. "We don't want to have anything to do with al-Shabab. We just wish they would go away."

After the Minnesota women were arrested, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Minnesota came up with tips for charitable giving. Spokeswoman Jeanne Cooney said there is no safe list of nonprofits that are free of terror ties, but the Office of Foreign Assets Control maintains a list of groups that are designated as terror organizations. While that list is not all-inclusive, Cooney said, "We urge people to peruse that list before they give or make contributions."

She said the government doesn't recommend one group over another, but there are some, such as ARC, that have been carefully scrutinized and seen as ethical. Still, it's up to the donor to make sure a group is legitimate.

Wordsworth said ARC began working with the Somali community two years ago In April they announced a partnership called Neighbors for Nations, which gave Somalis a safe way to send humanitarian aid back home.

Now, he said, ARC and American Relief Agency for the Horn of Africa have a joint team in Mogadishu that is providing food baskets and items like blankets to thousands who have flocked to the capital city for relief.

The United Nations estimates that more than 11 million people in East Africa are affected by thedrought, with 3.7 million in Somalia among the worst-hit because of civil war there. Somalia's prolonged drought devolved into famine in part because neither the Somali government nor many aid agencies can fully operate in areas controlled by al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab.

The U.N. has said it will airlift emergency rations later this week in an effort to try and reach at least 175,000 of the 2.2 million Somalis who have not been helped yet.

The diaspora in Minnesota is doing what it can. Sade Hashi simply threw open the event center of his Safari Restaurant for free to anyone who wanted to meet about the drought. Hashi said it was the least he could do: He remembers fleeing Somalia due to the civil war and waiting in line for water.

"Now that we live here, we don't forget that," he said. "We are trying to save a life."

Farah's Facebook page, which lists organizations where people can donate funds, has followers across the globe. She supports groups that have workers on the ground outside Mogadishu, because she says access to aid is key. She has been promoting Amoud Foundation, a Texas-based group that is setting up feeding centers around Somalia.

The group has raised roughly $94,000 in less than two weeks from the Twin Cities alone. They have received additional pledges for donations from Memphis, Tenn., Chicago, the Washington D.C. area and the Dallas-Fort Worth area, said Mohamoud Egal, president of the Amoud Foundation.

The group focuses on health care, education and helping displaced women and children in Somalia. Egal said group members had planned to come to Minnesota to tap the diaspora for funds for its work — but instead is focused on famine relief.

"Right now our mission is to save their lives," Egal said.

The group has set up collection sites at area mosques and a Somali mall. Some of the money collected went to emergency food and water, with the rest going toward the feeding centers, where suffering can go get nourishment.

Mohamed Idris, executive director of ARAHA, said his team in Mogadishu is seeing more people in need of help each day.

"The situation is very critical," he said. "We need to act swiftly to ensure these people get the aid they need."

___

How to help:

http://www.interaction.org/crisis-list/interaction-members-respond-drought-crisis-horn-africa

Upcoming Event

2010-12-24T01:40:00.000-08:00

Somalis in Twin Cities Shaken by Charges of Sex Trafficking

2010-12-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

Somalis in Twin Cities Shaken by Charges of Sex Trafficking

Jennifer Ackerman for The New York Times

Members of Minneapolis’s Somali community left an Eid prayer at Masjid Dar Al-Hijrah on Tuesday. While many Somalis have thrived in the United States, criminal allegations have jolted the immigrant population.

By ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: November 23, 2010

MINNEAPOLIS — When the girl now identified as Jane Doe 2 came under their control in 2006, at age 12, the Somali Outlaws and the Somali Mafia gangs set a firm rule: Their members could have sex with her for nothing; others had to pay with money or drugs.
Enlarge This Image
Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Abdulkadir Sheriff, a former gang member who works at the Da’wah Islamic center, said his recovery from a stabbing was a sign “that I’ve got a second chance.”
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Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Studying the Koran.
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Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Somali women at the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minn., the site of a gathering last week on a major Islamic holiday.
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Jennifer Ackerman for The New York Times
“I see these indictments as a wake-up call for parents,” said Hassan Mohamud, a lawyer and imam of the Da’wah Islamic center in St. Paul.
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Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Kassim Busuri, 23, right, helping Sara Mohamud, 8, and others with homework in a tutoring program at the Da’wah center.
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Repeatedly over the next three years, in apartments, motel rooms and shopping center bathrooms in Minnesota and Tennessee, the girl performed sexual acts for gang members and paying customers in succession, according to a federal indictment that charged 29 Somalis and Somali-Americans with drawing young girls into prostitution over the last decade, using abuse and threats to keep them in line, and other crimes. The suspects, now aged 19 to 38, sported nicknames like Hollywood, Cash Money and Forehead, prosecutors said.
The allegations of organized trafficking, unsealed this month, were a deep shock for the tens of thousands of Somalis in the Minneapolis area, who fled civil war and famine to build new lives in the United States and now wonder how some of their youths could have strayed so far. Last week, in quiet murmurings over tea and in an emergency public meeting, parents and elders expressed bewilderment and sometimes outrage — anger with the authorities for not acting sooner to stop the criminals, and with themselves for not saving their young.
The indictment was the latest in a series of jolting revelations starting around 2007, when a spate of deadly shootings in the Twin Cities made it impossible to ignore the emergence of Somali gangs. Then came the discovery that more than 20 men had returned to Somalia to fight for Islamic extremists, bringing what many Somalis feel has been harsh and unfair scrutiny from law enforcement and the news media.
“And now it’s this sex ring,” said Zuhur Ahmed, 25, who discusses Somali issues on her weekly program on KFAIcommunity radio in Minneapolis. “Everybody is wondering what’s going to be the next thing.”
Cawo Abdi, a Somali sociologist at the University of Minnesota, said that past surges in concern about troubled youths had not been followed up with money and programs to help them. “This is viewed as such a huge scandal and outrage,” she said of the new charges, “that it has to lead to some kind of action.”
Many Somali immigrants are adapting well to the United States, as demonstrated on a major Islamic holiday last week when, in what has become an annual ritual, thousands streamed from morning prayers to enjoy the giant indoor amusement park at the Mall of America. Girls in traditional head scarves and boys in their best white shirts lined up for wild rides like the Splat-O-Sphere and the Log Chute. Yet poverty remains common, and their wrenching history creates some special obstacles for Somali families.
“The migrant youth are more at risk than other kids,” said Dahir Jibreel, a former teacher who is the executive director of the Somali Justice Advocacy Center, a small nonprofit group that hopes to develop community programs.
Typically, the parents grew up in Somalia while their children have grown up in America, and they inhabit different cultural worlds. The parents, some of whom have not mastered English, expect obedience and modesty and closely follow politics back in East Africa; the children are focused not on the homeland but on the money, clothes and excitement dangled by American culture.
Compounding the challenges, some young Somalis arrived in the United States after traumatic years in refugee camps, and without their parents. A significant minority have dropped out of school, only to spend time lurking in the streets around Riverside Plaza, a low-income high-rise complex in the neighborhood some call Little Mogadishu, or around one of the city’s Somali shopping centers.
The indictment that set off the current soul-searching accuses the members of three interlinked gangs — the Somali Outlaws, the Somali Mafia and the Lady Outlaws — of involvement with the sex trafficking as well as thefts and large-scale credit card fraud.
One girl, identified as Jane Doe 1, was not yet 14 in 2005 when gang members first drove her to Tennessee and Ohio to trade sex for money and drugs, according to the indictment. Another girl, Jane Doe 3, was 15 in 2008 when she argued with her mother and fled to a gang member known as Boss Lady, only 18 herself, who put her up while managing her prostitution.
Some Somali leaders, including relatives of some of those charged, insisted that federal agencies were exaggerating both the crimes and the reach of any gangs.
The authorities have identified “a couple of hundred” Somalis who are members or associates of several different gangs, said Jeanine Brudenell, a community liaison with the Minneapolis police. The groups tend to be loosely structured, and while they are known for robberies and occasional marijuana dealing, they are not large-scale hard-drug syndicates like some American gangs.
Mr. Jibreel, the former teacher, said he had heard other examples of teenage girls who ended up as sex slaves. He said he had recently helped one girl who ran off at 12 and turned to prostitution and drugs under the aegis of gangs. She had a baby at 16 who was taken away by child protective services and continued her underworld life — under threat of death if she tried to leave it — until she recently gave birth to a second child whom she is determined to keep.
In a community that shies away from public discussion of sex and crime, some religious leaders and social workers have tried in the past to warn about the perils facing Somali youths.
“I see these indictments as a wake-up call for parents,” said Hassan Mohamud, a lawyer and imam of the Da’wah Islamic center in St. Paul.
Imam Mohamud visits Somalis in prison, trying to lure them to the fold, and his mosque offers after-school Koran classes to scores of young people, but he added that the community needed money for things like soccer coaches as well as stronger religious training.
One former gang leader he helped is Abdulkadir Sheriff, 31, whose tale, though many details cannot be independently confirmed, seems to encapsulate the strains and temptations of many Somali youths.
Mr. Sheriff said he fled Somalia for Kenya after seeing two sisters raped and murdered. He ended up in Minneapolis in 1996 with a sister and her husband, at the age of 17. They moved into the forbidding towers of Riverside Plaza, and he was kicked out of high school within a month after getting into fights. (To this day, he cannot read or write.)
Mr. Sheriff said he helped form Somali gangs for protection and self-esteem. “The only way to survive is to be somebody,” he said. He admitted carrying guns and selling drugs, spent a year in prison for car theft and beat a murder rap, but he insists that he was not involved in prostitution.
In 2007, as Mr. Sheriff emerged from a bar near the apartment towers, a rival stabbed him in the neck and left him for dead. His recovery, he said, “was a sign from God,” and his conversion was cemented by a visit from Imam Mohamud. Now Mr. Sheriff, who speaks with a raspy voice because of damage to his vocal cords, works as security chief at the Da’wah center and leads an Islamic 12-step program to help others stop drinking.
When he sees his surgical scars in the mirror, Mr. Sheriff said, “This reminds me that I’ve got a second chance.”
“There won’t be another one,” he said.
A version of this article appeared in print on November 24, 2010, on page A16 of the New York edition.

fiqi class

2010-10-04T16:37:00.000-07:00

don't forget the due date for missing papers which is due by tomorrow, on Oct. 5, Tuesday at 12:00am.

Welcome to Da'wah Blog

2010-10-04T16:16:00.001-07:00

Minnesota Da'wah Institute
Who are we(Purpose & Goal): Minnesota Da'wah Institute (MDI) was established in February of 2007 by local Muslims from different backgrounds and
professions with one goal in common; to be an asset in our community in which adequate programs and services such as religious, educational and
social are provided through adhering in the principles of Islam (the Qur'an and the Sunnah).
Da'wah: in its original term, is derived from the arabic noun of DA'i which describes a person who calls to the path of the Lord. Da'wah is here in place to
call all those willing to hear, to the true path of Islam. Hence, this name reflects our purpose and goal, Minnesota Da'wah Institute is a nonprofit and
tax-exempt organization.