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Fiona Hamilton and Sean
O’Neill
London, July 18, 2009 – Today at evening, tens of thousands of families
across Britain will gather around their television sets, shunning the
BBC and commercial channels in favor of Universal TV, the Somali
community’s most popular forum.
At 8pm, their eyes will be glued to Somali Voices, a programme that aims
to tackle the community’s most difficult issues head on. Last week it
highlighted the importance of education and analyzed the drop-out rates
and academic achievements of young Somalis. This week it will examine
drug problems, including the use of qat, the legal drug that is
prevalent in Somali society.
Despite the enormity of the issues it tackles, Somali Voices is put
together with a tiny budget and produced by a small group of young men —
who together form the London Somali Youth Forum (LSYF) — working from a
rundown council estate in Camden, North London.
But it is testament to their dedication that they have succeeded in
reaching a community that is so often considered unreachable. For
decades, one of Britain’s largest African communities (there are up to
160,000 Somalis in London alone, and tens of thousands more in cities
including Birmingham, Leicester and Cardiff) has also been one of its
most marginalized.
Stereotypes associated with Somalia and the Somali community in the UK
can be conveyed in the following words: violence, anarchy, knife crime,
qat and piracy, to name but a few.
However, Mohamed Hassan, one of the founders of the LSYF, can think of a
few others: “Helplessness, voicelessness, invisibility,” the 34-year-old
youth worker said. “There’s a lack of representation, a fear and
distrust of authority: these things are widespread in our community.
That’s what we want to change. The forum hopes to address these issues.”
In a bold and ambitious initiative supported by the Metropolitan Police,
the LSYF aims to turn around the stereotypes and the fortunes of its
much-maligned community.
By creating a way for Somali youth to air grievances and by promoting
positive role models, offering sporting and educational programmes and
providing a link between the authorities and the community, the LSYF
aims to turn young Somalis away from gang culture and the other serious
problems that affect them.
The forum is represented by youth workers from 16 London boroughs, who
meet regularly to discuss strategies to combat gangs, for example, or to
encourage better attendance at schools. As well as the television
programme, they run award ceremonies to celebrate the achievements of
Somali youth in education and conduct outreach work.
They are being used as a pathway for local councils, the Met and the
Home Office to reach the community, something that has proved difficult
in the past because of the mistrust of authority that runs deep among
many in the Somali community.
Abdiwahab Ali, 25, an administrator of the forum, said that its work was
“breaking down barriers”.
“Because of the dictatorships back home [in Somalia], the authorities
are feared by Somalis. We are increasing the ease [of the community]
with police here.”
The approach is already paying dividends. When a man was stabbed on the
Old Kent Road in southeast London last year, the police found themselves
in an all too familiar situation: investigating a murder in a community
that was unwilling to talk. The perpetrator was a Somali man and many
locals knew who he was.
A representative from the LSYF was able to persuade witnesses to come
forward and the murderer was subsequently convicted.
Young people in danger of becoming victims of gang violence have also
been rehoused in other boroughs, using links that were made through the
forum.
LSYF members have organized training programmes with different agencies,
including managers at Camden council, to highlight the cultural needs
and other requirements of the Somali community. They also help out as
translators on occasions.
The aim is to generate greater cohesion between the community and the
authorities, ultimately leading to better integration of the Somalis
into British life. They are keen to combat the negative, and often
unfair, stereotypes associated with the community and to generate
positive news stories.
Ibrahim Isse, 30, director of the Somali Youth Development Resource
Centre in Camden, which works with the forum, said that in the past
year, a sense of “one unity and one voice” had been developed within the
Somali community.
“In the past, the local authorities had problems with reaching the
community. Now, we can do that for them,” he said.
“We don’t have representatives in the political arena. We don’t have
MPs, wealthy businessmen, councilors. But there is a drive and a change
that is coming from the young people. We will no longer be invisible.”
Source: The Times, July 17, 2009
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