As a member of the Ethiopian Community, I bring my skills in outreach and cultural knowledge to build bonds as community and understand each other’s struggles. I love the environment of the Center, and the fact that we share a background helps us to cultivate hope and prepare our youth for a good future.
Layla Ali
As a Somali community member, I love to cook and organize at the space because we all share a similar experience. I’m guided by God and seek to help the youth to better their own future.
Fadumo Farah
When I saw the struggle my community was facing. I wanted to support and make a change for the community. I love to come to the Center and help out with cooking, recording the community, and solving our issues together. Seeing the struggles our kids are facing and the help they need is what drives me to do this work, and having God and being with my community is what guides me.
Kafisa Mohamed
I love problem-solving, cooking, and coming from the Somali community, I love sharing experiences to help each other heal. I’m inspired to help my community, and find ways to make the youth strive for a better future. I am guided by faith in God.
Maryan Mohamed
I come from Eritrea, and I come to the Center to cook and to build sisterhood and bonds with all of us who are facing the same struggles. My friends inspire and motivate me, and my family is my guiding star.
Fatima Saeed
I love cooking and engaging with youth. As part of the Somali community, I try to bring people together to engage and learn more about the issues that are going on in the community. It’s inspiring to have a place where we share the same language, where we can get services if we’re facing a problem. My children are part of the programs and get a lot of support. I believe in God and that everything happens for a reason.
Khadra Aden
What I bring to the center is great leadership skills, artistry and creative ideas, and a good role model for and friendship with the youth. I bring a mixture of Islamic and African backgrounds to the Center. I’m inspired by the environment here, the peers, the vibe, the unity, the hospitality and welcomeness. My values are a hate-free heart; maintaining peace of mind and a healthy perspective.
Haadi N. Mohamed
I bring leadership and mentorship to the Center, coming from a Somali, Muslim, refugee, and low-income experience. I’m inspired by this work because, growing up in the area, I get to help kids who were just like me growing up. I’m motivated because I want to be an accessible role model for these kids, because growing up I didn’t have that. I value having good character and treating people how I’d want to be treated.
I bring my own experiences and look to better the East African Community Center in any way I can through voicing my opinion and actions. I am a long time member of the hall and went through its tutoring programs when I was in high school.
I can relate and voice opinions for the kids because I went through what they are going though. I’m inspired by the impact that our actions and outreach has on the kids and the community we live in. There are not many programs like UWEAST and I am thankful for them, and I want to be apart of that. Anything I do I make sure I do it with 100% effort. That carries into all things i do in my life.
Sahra Abdi is a community activist in San Diego. A respected advocate for refugees from Somalia—wracked by civil war since 1991—and for other African immigrants, she serves as a violence prevention liaison for families accustomed to an environment where fighting is a way of life. Abdi severed as a program coordinator at the City Heights Wellness Center, a partnership between Children’s Hospital and Scripps Health. Abdi overseen the Hooyo (Somali for “mother”) Health program. The program provided health, nutrition and safety education for Somali and East African mothers and their families.
In her previous role as a family-support worker for Social Advocates for Youth (SAY) in San Diego, Abdi organized classes to teach parents how to manage stress and discipline and communicate with their children. She also organized peer groups in which teens learned how to better communicate with their parents, handle the dislocations of living in two cultures and manage anger.In 2006, The California Wellness Foundation recognized Sahra’s work by naming her a California Peace Prize Honoree.