Breaking barriers: Homework club helps Somali-Canadians with learning English and other issues
Seventeen-year-old Mohamed Ibrahim towers over the 40 younger kids in the classroom. “I’m just trying to give back a little,” the Queen Elizabeth High School 12th-grader says over the rising din.
It’s nearly 8 p.m. and the children are beyond restless. They’ve been doing homework at the Somali-Canadian Cultural Society of Edmonton for two hours and they’re at the end of their attention spans.
Ibrahim, who was born in Somalia but came to Canada when he was three, was a participant in the homework club when he was in junior high. Now he’s one of the volunteer tutors.
“I came for the math-related stuff,” Ibrahim explains as a young boy tugs on the teen’s shirt.
“English was never a problem.”
That’s not the case for all of the kids, who fill two classrooms in Edmonton’s Africa Centre (the old Wellington Junior High) at 13160 127 St. four nights every week.
“Some of the kids spent a couple years in refugee camps before coming to Canada,” explains one dad.
When they start school in Canada, they’re usually placed in classes with kids their own age, instead of at their reading level and they need all the help they can get to catch up.
But, says the society’s Mohamed Abdi, “most come here for help because their parents’ English isn’t good enough for them to help their children.”
Edmonton’s Somali community has exploded in the past few years to about 10,000, making it the largest single African cultural group in the metro area.
It’s now the largest Somali community in Canada, outside of Ontario.
Between 2005 and 2008, the economic boom attracted thousands of Somalis from Ottawa and Toronto, where most settle when they first arrive in Canada.
But as the community grows, Edmonton is expected to draw more new arrivals to Canada. And this, in turn, will make the homework club even more critical for the increasing numbers of children who arrive speaking no English at all.
The club, which gets volunteer help from Big Brothers and Big Sisters, is already so busy that the society is opening another club on the south side.
“We always see more children after report cards come out,” the society’s Abdillah Kulmiye says with a laugh.
But it’s not just for the kids, he says.
“The parents get a chance to come together,” he says. “They can get help from each other, anything from immigration issues to helping each other with the language.”
“We really appreciate this,” says mom Jamila Mohamed. “English is our second language so it’s not easy to help our kids with their school-work.”
Hafsa Hassan, another mom, nods emphatically. “We really appreciate the volunteers for all the work they do.”
Tonight is pizza night. Once all their homework is out of the way, the children line up for slices.
Ten-year-old Ramla Mohamed says the club gives her a chance to meet kids who live in other parts of the city. When she grows up, Ramla, adds, she wants to become a teacher.
Her sister Salma, 7, shouts out to peals of laughter, “I’m going to be a plumber!”
Surprised at the reaction, she shrugs and laughs, “What? I’ve been saying that for two years.”
Twelve-year-old Zeynab Mubarak says the homework club is one of the highlights of her week.
“When I come here and I’m with all these other Somali kids,” she says, “I feel the unity.”
Source: Edmonton Sun
