By Season Osborn
Arriving in Ottawa on Dec. 24, 1994, was a shock to Shoon Omar and her family. Her two sons asked: “What is this white stuff? Does it feel like cotton?”
Coming from Somalia, they had never seen snow before.
Somalis are one of the newer immigrant communities in the city.
Adjusting to a different climate is only one of the things Somali refugees like Omar have to face. Landing in the city without a job is another.
“You have to volunteer in this country before you can do anything,” friends told her.
So Omar volunteered for various community centres in the region. She enjoyed the social work, and then took correspondence courses for her counselling diploma. Her first paying job was helping homebound seniors. She was paid for nine hours and volunteered the rest of the week.
Ten years later, Omar still does not have full-time employment. She balances two part-time counselling jobs, helping people cope with daily stress.
“The job market is not easy. More so for people who don’t speak either of the two official languages. The majority of Somalis don’t speak either French or English. I think I’m one of the luckiest, I guess,” she says.
Omar may be lucky, but she is also multilingual. She speaks English, French, Somali, Spanish and Arabic. As a community worker at the multicultural Lowertown Community Resource Centre on Cobourg Street, she uses these languages regularly. The majority of people she sees are from Somalia.
Between 1992 and 1994, 13,000 to 15,000 Somalis emigrated from their war-ravaged country to Ottawa.
Omar says people chose Ottawa because it is the capital and there is an established Muslim community here. Many have since moved to other cities.
Statistics Canada’s 2001 census puts the Somali population in Ottawa at 8,000 and 33,725 in Canada.
Omar says 75 per cent of the Somali community is made up of large families headed by single mothers. The majority of them live in non-profit housing. Omar says when civil war broke out in Somalia, the men sent their wives and children overseas to live in a safe place.
“There is never enough money for the whole family to go, so half of the family stays and half come here. Because of the immigration laws these families never get reunited unless they have landed immigrant status,” she says.
In 1993, the Canadian immigration laws prohibited immigrants without identification from receiving landed immigrant status for five years. The majority of those who were “undocumented” were women and children, and mostly Somali and Afghani refugees.
“That put the Somali community in limbo,” Omar says.
Without landed immigrant status, wives could not sponsor husbands and people could not get jobs or student loans to continue with a post-secondary education.
The Canadian Somali community said the immigration ID law went against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, arguing in federal court that it was discriminatory to make Somalis produce identity documents to gain official status in Canada.In December, 2000, Citizenship and Immigration Canada amended its law so that landed immigrant status can now be conferred within three years instead of five.
Abdirizak Karod immigrated to Ottawa in 1993. However, finding work was difficult. One day he went with his cousin to Jewish Family Services to see if they could help him find a job. They did.
Karod was hired for a position with the Somali Centre for Family Services, helping Somalis get job training, find employment and “adjust to the system.”
Over the last nine years, Karod has promoted and fundraised for the centre. He is now executive director.
There are Somalis in every Ottawa industry from high-tech to corner stores.
The centre also lobbies organizations for key employment positions in the city. Karod says after many meetings with the chief of Ottawa Police Services, the first Somali officer was hired last June.
The centre appealed to the Ottawa Board of Education to hire Somali teachers.
Many schools have classes with 30 and 40 per cent Somalis. The board hired itsfirst Somali teacher this year.
Several local Somali social workers are Carleton University graduates. Karod and Omar agree the Somali community was successful because the Somalis lobbied for it themselves. Karod says the Somali Centre’s partnership with Jewish Family Services is another achievement. Jewish Family Services looks after the centre’s finances and acts as its mentor.
“The relationship has broken down stereotypes between Muslims and Jews,” says Mark Zarecki, executive director of Jewish Family Services.
The Somalis are an important part of the multicultural “Ottawa mosaic,” which is helping promote understanding within the broader community, Karod says.
“I think we’re gaining with all these cultures,” he says. “It’s moving the country forward, really. The children are talking to each other, learning different cultures, different foods, different topics of discussion and the country will grow up to be like-minded.”