Sunday, November 02, 2008
 JOHN GIBBINS / Union-Tribune
Amina Farah (right), a resettlement case manager with the International Rescue Committee, assisted a Somali woman with a doctor's appointment in Hillcrest last month. |
Farah knew because she had been in that same situation 11 years ago, when she fled a war-torn Somalia and landed in the United States as a refugee.
Since then, she has helped thousands of people acclimate to life in America. Farah, 47, was recently honored for her accomplishments as a resettlement case manager with the International Rescue Committee, where she has worked since 1998.
Farah is part cheerleader, teacher, therapist and healer. She tirelessly advocates on behalf of her clients.
“When I came to the U.S., being a mother and refugee woman, it was hard,” Farah said. “You are victims of war. You lose everything you own as a refugee, not just your home and things but your spouse, siblings, children. You start from scratch.”
Imagine, she said, living comfortably in San Diego then suddenly abandoning your home, escaping empty-handed to a foreign country where you don't speak the language or understand the culture.
People who were once doctors and professors must find entry-level work.
“Refugee people don't choose to be refugees,” she said. “They are forced.”
Farah's fingers have thumbed through thousands of papers in her mission to help refugees adjust. She is well-versed in the ways of bureaucracy, up to date on the terminology that any social worker worth her salt needs to trigger change. She is welcoming, friendly and quick to flash her bright smile, but she is utterly no-nonsense.
“Tell me what I need to do,” she says to a welfare worker over the phone. “Whatever it is, I will do it.”
Clients are referred to her. Farah first finds them housing – it must be cheap, she said, which is difficult in San Diego – and then stocks the apartment with furniture, food and household necessities with funds from the International Rescue Committee. Often, she picks up the refugees at the airport.
Next is a trip to the hospital or doctor, then the Social Security office. Children are immunized and enrolled in schools; parents begin English classes and job-readiness training.
The goal is to get the client self-sufficient within eight months.
“We help them financially for eight months,” Farah said. “Take a single mother who never went to school in her life. To become self-sufficient is really difficult.”
Farah lives in Temecula. Every morning, she drives more than an hour to the IRC office. When refugees tell her that they can't get an education or a job, that it's too hard, she gives the best example she knows: herself.
“I went to school, I bought a house, I woke up at 2 a.m. to go to work,” she said. “If I can do it, you can do it.”
She is particularly drawn to helping women and children, many of whom arrive traumatized by rape and assault in refugee camps.
“Sometimes I take home their problems,” Farah said. “I think about it in the middle of the night. I cry when they cry, I laugh when they laugh.”
One of her clients, Samsam Mohamed, will soon graduate from San Diego State University with a degree in international business and public administration. When Mohamed came to America, Farah helped her learn English.
“She always told me to go to school, that school is the most important thing,” Mohamed said. “She has a kind heart to help people.”
Papers and folders cover Farah's desk at the IRC's office in City Heights, the most diverse neighborhood in the San Diego. Pictures of her three children accessorize the wall. She's enrolled at the University of Phoenix, studying to get her degree in social work.
When civil war broke out in Somalia, Farah fled with a degree in business, but without a diploma to prove it. She left her life as an employee at the Central Bank of Somalia and took her children to a refugee camp in Ethiopia where fear was rampant.
“Safety and security are nonexistent,” she said. “Rape is a daily torture for many female refugees. ”
Sixteen family members were killed when a missile hit their house in Hargeisa. She lost her cousins and was told that her mother and sister were dead, but later learned they survived. They now live in Europe.
Farah and her children spent four months in the camp before returning to Somalia for a passport. She traveled through other countries, including Italy and Canada, before settling in the United States.
“When you are a refugee, you take the journey, but you don't know where you are going to be,” Farah said. “I just wanted a safe place.”
Since 1988, more than 1 million people have been displaced by the war in Somalia. An estimated 3 million face extreme poverty. Recurring drought and famine are a way of life.
When she came to America, she “kissed the ground and thanked God.”
Determined to make a new life, Farah went to high school for the second time. Then college. The IRC helped her and one year later, she was hired by the organization.
“Amina worked in the office as a child care assistant, and when we had an opening in case management, we thought she'd be perfect,” said Bob Montgomery, resettlement director for the IRC. “Turns out we were right.”
When she landed the job, she said it was like winning the lottery.
“This is my passion,” Farah said. “It's a dream come true. When my clients achieve, when they get a job, get married – that's what makes me happy.”