Somali-American helps others adjust to life in US

Said Ahmed remembers the desert winds of Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya surrounded by miles of sand and scrub. He remembers arriving in Boston when he was a boy of 12, dazzled by the city skyline and by joggers along the Charles River.

Now 32, the former track star helps a new generation adjust to America. United Somali Youth, founded by Ahmed in 2009, provides support systems and life skills to children of African immigrants.

The program has grown from 100 youngsters in 2009 to 500 this summer with 35 teen employees. The organization, funded by Boston Centers for Youth & Families, the Boston Foundation, and donations from Somali-American businesses, has drawn a range of children — the majority of them Somali, Ahmed said, but many hailing from other countries across Africa. Most are boys, but there are some girls.

Ahmed escaped his small Somali town in 1990, when warring clans pitched the country into a power struggle. Leaving behind a land on the brink of civil war, Ahmed, then 7 years old, fled with his family to Ethiopia, bouncing to two Kenyan refugee camps before heading to Boston.

But after enduring desert climes where food and shoes were scarce, he had another hurdle to face: He “couldn’t speak a word of English.”

While Ahmed, who became a two-time Olympic trials finalist, developed a support system through involvement in high school sports, other immigrant children haven’t been so lucky.

Now a student and family engagement coordinator at Excel High School, Ahmed said he sees African students get labeled as “slow” learners simply because their level of English isn’t up to par.

“I couldn’t stand to have kids in my community struggling with life, school, work, and court systems,” Ahmed said. “If we don’t invest in the leaders of tomorrow, then how would we have a bright future?”

The United Somali Youth slogan — “Youth of Today, Leaders of Tomorrow” — is printed across baby-blue shirts, the color of the Somali flag. Young people ages 6 to 24 participate in sports and educational workshops, learning skills that range from reading to fixing computers.

Hunched behind rows of computers at the South End Technology Center on a recent afternoon, a dozen United Somali Youths typed their autobiographies.

Abdulkhaliq Salah, 16, a Somali teen who came to Dorchester from Kenya, used President Obama’s biography as a template.

“He’s a good speaker. He can make people love him,” said Salah, who said he is considering pursuing a career in the US government.

Abdiwahab Ibrahim, 16, followed his friend’s example, studying Obama’s biography to craft his own life story.

Ibrahim spent seven years in Syria and witnessed the revolution, hearing bombs going off and bullets fired. When armed helicopters attacked a neighborhood close to his home, his family relocated to Turkey before settling in Dorchester seven months ago.

He misses his former home, and the call to prayer that rang five times a day, but he is glad to be away from the conflict.

“Syria is in a bad situation. America is in really good shape,” he said.

Listing the benefits of living in the United States, several of the youngsters lauded the education system.

“We used to pay for schools [in Africa]. Now we have free schools,” said Mohamed Hussein, 15, a Roxbury resident from Kenya.

Twice a week, the youths learn in a Harvard classroom — for free.

Participating in Pre-Texts, a Harvard-affiliated literacy program, the teens use creative techniques to interpret literature and lead classes themselves, under the supervision of Pre-Text facilitators.

Raekwon Rogers, 15, directed a class last month, dividing his peers into groups who then scrawled tweets across a chalkboard. Each message was written from the perspective of a character that appeared in an excerpt from a novel about refugees.

By the end of the exercise, the room’s three chalkboards were crammed with hashtagged words. The teens then took turns talking about what they did in class.

“We listened,” they said. “We talked about love. We explained hashtags. We had fun.”

Aden Moallim, 19, said he could speak Somali, Swahili, and English.

“I feel like I’m at home,” he said of the program. “Without United Somali Youth, I’d be speaking English every day. It makes my Somali way better than it was before.”

Moallim joined dozens of teens who meet every weekday afternoon at the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, a Roxbury mosque, to pray on a lush green carpet.

For Friday prayers, the teens are “dressed for success,” Ahmed said, clad in colorful ties and button-down shirts.

These young men rode in a van after prayers ended to attend a mostly male wedding reception for a Somali groom in Jamaica Plain. A similar ceremony for the bride would be held separately and attended by women.

Then the boys spent an evening playing an all-American game of basketball.

Sneakers squeaked across a court at Clarence “Jeep” Jones Park, where girls with brightly colored hijabs rode scooters past the players at the edge of the court.

Teens sat on bleachers and watched a championship game unfold: red team vs. blue team as the United Somali Youth Basketball League reached its conclusion.

Sana Dahaba, 15, a guard for the red team, shot the ball into a hoop from behind the three-point line. His team lost, but he crossed the court and scored multiple points nonetheless.

In Africa, he had kicked soccer balls with his cousins. The Dorchester athlete visited Guinea-Bissau in 2011 after his family had immigrated to the United States a decade before.

“We’re not African-Americans, but we’re not African,” Dahaba said of United Somali Youths. “We have an African heritage, but we came to America. [United Somali Youth] helps me get closer to people who kind of have the same culture as me, and we get to have fun together.”

 

Rosa Nguyen can be reached at rosa.nguyen@globe.com.