Thousands of Somalis who fled persecution and civil war in the Horn of Africa country have benefited from resettlement programs in third countries like the United States.

Muhidin Libah is one of them. He told UN News how he created the Somali Bantu Community Association in Lewiston, Maine, to both preserve Somali Bantu culture and help former refugees integrate into the American way of life.

“I fled my home in the Jubba Valley in southern Somalia in 1991 when my community was attacked. Many people have been killed, some are starving, women have been raped and our land and property have been looted by different parties fighting in the country’s civil war.

Persecution

I am a Somali Bantu and my people are the descendants of African slaves who were brought to Somalia generations ago. We have always felt persecuted by ethnic Somalis.

I crossed the border without my family and ended up in Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya. I was barely 15 years old, had never been to school, and I did not know what to cultivate.

If I had stayed in Somalia I think I would have been killed at some point because there were so many young boys carrying guns.

UN Child

I spent 10 years in Dadaab and life was tough. It was dry and sandy and very hot and so different from where I live in the Jubba Valley which is very green in winter.

There wasn’t much that could be done in Dadaab, so it was a bit like an open-air prison, even though I started studying thanks to the schools that were set up by the United Nations. The children were given the opportunity to go to school instead of carrying guns, which I am very grateful for. The UN also provided food and water rations, so I am truly a UN child.

As Somali Bantu we were safer in Kenya, but still targeted by other Somalis, so the UN transferred us to another camp in Kenya called Kakuma where I spent two years before being resettled. in the USA.
In Kenya we were very dependent on the UN, so my dream in the US was to create a self-sustaining farming community. Somali Bantu Community Association is a way to empower my people, many of whom do not speak English.

Life on the farm

We recently got long term tenure of our land here in Lewiston, Maine, so we’ve entered a new phase where we know we can build a future here. We call our land farms of liberation as a sign of our new found freedom.

Our 220 family farmers, three-quarters of whom are women, each have a tenth of an acre to cultivate, practicing traditional agriculture which involves intercropping different plants and vegetables and often placing several seeds in one hole at a time. They grow what I call culturally appropriate crops like molokhia (Egyptian spinach), amaranth, eggplants, various beans as well as African corn.

They also learn new American techniques, including drip irrigation and row planting. They are growing crops like beetroot, broccolini and fennel for the first time.

All the food they produce is organic, which creates income and ensures food security for many families who might otherwise receive support in the form of food stamps.

From birth to death, the land is deeply linked to our culture and agriculture is therefore at the center of the Association. We also run other community advocacy programs including conflict resolution, health counseling and youth groups.

UN News / Daniel Dickinson

Farmers can grow their own crops on a tenth of a hectare of land

The integration

There are 7,000 Somalis in Lewiston and its sister city Auburn, of whom 3,000 are Somali Bantu. The integration of our community into American life has been slow, which I put down to a lack of English but also an ignorance of people who come from abroad and who are different. Agriculture will facilitate integration because food is a universal language. This will bring our communities together and we are already seeing it when we sell our products in local farmers’ markets.

I believe that from the next generation, as our young people leave school, we will be fully integrated.
We want to maintain our way of life as much as possible, but at the same time adapt to life here, keeping the best elements of Bantu and American Somali culture, so that we can raise well-balanced and capable children. in this environment. . “