Building an Environmental Justice Program for Somali Refugees & Immigrant Communities: A Conversation with Somali Empowerment Circle
Artwork by Arcadia Trueheart
Hanna Osman, the co-executive director of Somali Empowerment Circle, cherishes her parents’ stories of Somalia, where she was born but left as a baby due to the civil war. Her parents spoke of drinking tea and sharing sweets by trees as a form of nature therapy. “Trees are very blessed in our faith and culture,” Hanna says. “It’s a place that brings us together to talk about anything we want and provide support for each other.”
“There’s a lot of trauma that we harvested from coming to this country,” she says, “and we deal with a lot of institutional and systemic racism. So, a lot of our community members want access to behavioral health services that are culturally specific.”
Somali Empowerment Circle’s (SEC) mission is to empower Somali families and youth by promoting mental health and maternal and adolescent well-being and advocating for safe, affordable housing through culturally responsive services and systemic change. Recently, SEC added another pillar to its mission: environmental justice, which Hanna sees as the foundation. Creating better access to nature and addressing environmental inequities for their community members weave all the organization’s pillars together.
Artwork by Arcadia Trueheart
“ When we are exposed to cleaner air, more walkable neighborhoods, greater access to healthy foods, we are a lot healthier and our kids are a lot healthier. We are setting up generations to be healthier,” she says.
According to Hanna and Ahlam Osman, SEC’s Housing and Environmental Coordinator, many Somali refugee and immigrant community members have asthma, diabetes, and other cardiovascular diseases. They lack access to safe spaces to be physically active due to a lack of walkability and transportation infrastructure in their neighborhoods, especially for the youth. Their neighborhoods experience higher temperatures due to a lack of tree canopy, noise and air pollution from nearby industrial factories and highways, and generally, a lack of inclusion from Portland environmental organizations. Many community members also fear retaliation from property owners and a higher cost of living if they were to ask for improvements to their environmental health, such as more energy-efficient appliances.
“I think every human has a need to be out in nature,” says Ahlam, “it’s just a matter of how can I get there? How can it be a part of my daily life? How can I access it more often?”
Artwork by Arcadia Trueheart
Nature isn’t only integral to the health of the Somali community, it’s integral to their identity as Muslims, Ahlam explains. “We believe that as Muslims on this earth, God gave us the responsibility to make sure that we’re protecting it; that we’re nurturing the environment; and that we’re being sustainable in our daily lives and not producing too much waste.”
While attending Verde’s Water Leadership Justice Institute, Hanna was inspired to create a community-driven environmental justice program for SEC. However, she knew that involving community members in an authentic process to shape such a program would take a lot of time. She also didn’t have much experience with environmental grant applications, which tend to be arduous and lengthy.
With support from the Northwest Environmental Justice Center (NWEJC) and its partner, Alaí Community Consulting, SEC is now well on its way to defining, shaping, and funding a culturally relevant environmental justice program for their organization that reflects the Somali Muslim ways of stewarding and relating to nature.
“We’re more confident, we know what steps we want to take, and we are more in tune with our goals,” says Hanna.
Artwork by Arcadia Trueheart
Some of the goals for their new program include collecting data on the health disparities their community faces, making culturally relevant environmental justice policy recommendations on a national scale, collaborating with other environmental organizations in the tri-county area, and inspiring communities similar to theirs to see themselves outdoors and included in the environmental community.
“We feel lucky and blessed to be working with the Northwest Environmental Justice Center,” Hanna says. “Having someone with a lot of experience to talk to about our goals and what we would like to accomplish with our environmental justice program has been very helpful. And, just to be in space with other women of color from an immigrant background feels like a breath of fresh air.”