Sharifo Barake (left) gets help filling out forms from Abdullahi Sidow at the Somali-Bantu Community Development Council of South Dakota offices in Sioux Falls. (Devin Wagner / Argus Leader) |
Reading a utility bill or a child's report card are daunting tasks for the 600 Somali Bantu people in South Dakota, most of whom live in Sioux Falls.
Ninety-nine percent of the adults do not speak English.
So the Somali Bantu people are turning to each other for help.
Five Somali Bantu men who do speak English have been visiting homes across Sioux Falls, helping to translate forms that arrive in the mail into the Mai Mai language, so others in their community can understand.
In March, they opened a new community center in a small office on the edge of downtown, at 201 N. Minnesota Ave.. They are planning a literacy program that aims to lower the percentage of adults who speak no English.
"I believe that what I learn should help other people," said Abdullahi Sidow, who learned English at a refugee camp in Kenya, where his family fled because of civil war in Somalia. "Since we are the English speakers of the community, we feel we are obligated to help them."
Unlike the Multi-Cultural Center, the Bantus receive no outside assistance to fund the new center, known as the Somali Bantu Community Development Council of South Dakota.
The men volunteer their time, Sidow said. They go door-to-door each month collecting $20 from families, which is used to pay for the rent and expenses at the office.
"It is pretty amazing to see how this community has embraced their needs and are reaching out to help their community," said Carol Muller, executive director of the HelpLine Center in Sioux Falls. "It's amazing, and it's humbling."
Sidow, 23, attends Kilian Community College, where he's working toward an associate degree in social work. He volunteers at the center when he's not in class.
Sidow's family fled Somalia when he was 4 years old, and he spent the next 14 years in a refugee camp in Kenya.
His relatives were farmers and became caught in a vicious civil war. When they arrived in the refugee camps of Kenya, they encountered more violence.
The men were frequently beaten in the camps, recalls Suleiman Khamis, another volunteer at the center.
"We went to Kenya for safety, but didn't get the safety we need there," Khamis said.
When women ventured outside the refugee camp to collect firewood, he said, they were raped.
Khamis entered in the U.S. in May 2004, when he moved to Sioux Falls. He now works at Bell Inc., which makes packaging products. Other Sioux Falls firms employing Somali Bantus include John Morrell and Co. and Sanford Health.
Sidow was relocated to the Boston area in 2004, and moved to Sioux Falls last summer.
The men work with the Sioux Falls School District to help translate when they are needed, such as parent-teacher conferences.
Many of the Somali-Bantu children in Sioux Falls attend Cleveland, Longfellow, Lowell and Terry Redlin elementary schools, Khamis said. Once the adult language programs are in place at the center on North Minnesota Avenue, Sidow hopes to expand the effort to include more of the children.
Somalia "remains one of the most insecure places in the world, with an unprecedented humanitarian crisis," according to the nation's 2010 operations profile from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
In Sioux Falls, Muller met Sidow recently when he stopped by the HelpLine Center to deliver materials about what his group is doing. An impression he left on Muller is the value placed on education by he and others in the community, she said.
"There is a huge desire to help their families, and there is a huge commitment to education," Muller said. "They recognize that education is key for