Well, today was the last day of my practicum in Minneapolis, and it was absolutely amazing - I attended the Somali Family Services (SFS) 5th annual conference at the Minneapolis Community and Technical College, which had the theme "Civic Engagement: Local to Global." There were several sessions about various issues related to the Somali population at the local, national, and global level.
The first session I attended was about a grant-funded "student ambassador" program that SFS and the League of Women voters have worked together to provide in 2008-2009. 8 college students were selected through an essay process to participate, and funding provides each student with a stipend for participating. The students are working together to increase levels of civic engagement and political participation in local government. The students learn about how government works in Minnesota, meet with local government officials and influential community leaders, and learn to advocate for the Somali community through these channels. In addition, the students are given training and practice opportunities to improve presentation and speaking skills so that they can advocate more effectively in the community. It was really exciting to see the students so invested in giving back to their communities and improving their skills. I would love to try to get a grant for something like this in Columbus, and it also inspired me to think about how we could partner with local high schools with student ambassadors to work in the homework help centers. I think this could be a really effective way to recruit bilingual staff for the future and partner more effectively with community agencies.
The keynote speaker was Khalif Farah, who works with the UN Development Program in Somalia and has a lot of experience with the cuurent state of Somalia. He was not speaking as a representative of the UN, but rather as a member of the Somali community to talk through the role of the Somali Diaspora in rebuilding Somalia. He particularly focused on the tension between the internationally recognized government and the myriad of GNO's that are trying to provide assistance in various different ways - what he called the "civil society." It was interesting, and made me realize how complicated the situation in Somalia really is right now. I need brush up on my political geography!
During the afternoon, the first session I attended was a workshop about youth violence led by the student ambassador and some other community leaders. This was my favorite session of the day - it was an open dialogue among the people in the room about the recent violence and gang activity within the Somali community in Minneapolis. There were many high school and college students in the room talking passionately about the issues, as we worked through five questions:
1. What is at the root of youth violence? Who or what is responsible
2. What needs to be done to stop the violence?
3. Who has the power to stop youth violence?
4. What are the barriers to solving this problem?
5. What community organizations are currently working on the problem? (and who should be?)
After talking through these questions, the attendees worked together to come up with an action plan for dealing with youth violence, and different students volunteered to take the lead on various different initiatives. It was really inspirational to see the youth standing up and taking responsibility for tackling this difficult issue.
The final session of the day was about global warming and how it affecting people around the world, including countries like Somalia. People talked about the challenges that Somalia is facing with more droughts, shorter rainy seasons, and dried up water resources. This creates population shifts that bring different groups into conflict when they must fight for resources and land. One of the presenters from OxFam was actually an old college friend of mine, which was completely unexpected!
The end of the day was an opportunity to talk with different community members and exchange contact information, which I think was really valuable. Being in Minneapolis the last two weeks has given me some really great contacts that will be valuable sources of information and advice for working with the Somali community in Columbus.
I have to say that this experience was even more valuable than I thought it would be. My supervisor at Minneapolis Central, Emily Watts, has been a fabulous supervisor - she worked to find me really valuable learning opportunities throughout my time in Minneapolis and showed great flexibility. I really enjoyed working with her and look forward to keeping in touch so that we can trade new ideas. On that note, all of the staff members that I worked with at Hennepin County Libraries were gracious and helpful - even when they didn't have advance notice to prepare! I will definitely be back to visit, and hope that HCLIB and CML can work together more in the future to come up with creative services for immigrant populations. I can't believe my time is over - it seems like it just started! Thanks to everyone in Minneapolis who made me feel so welcome. I had a fantastic time!
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