'We can start the process': Somali parents in Edmonton want to help their children heal
Roberta Bell | CBC News | Posted: December 11, 2016 4:26 AM | Last Updated: December 13, 2016
Ad-hoc committee meeting with province on Tuesday to discuss mental health
Amina Farah stopped mid-sentence and turned suddenly when someone rapped on the window of the room at the Alberta Somali Community Centre.
She had been talking with other Somali parents in Edmonton about the son she fears.
She thought it was him knocking, but it turned out to be someone else.
"Right now, her son is here.... She said he's homeless," explained Habiba Abdulle, a family advocate at the community centre.
"He wants me to take him to my house but I can't," Abdulle said, translating Farah's Somali.
Farah says her son uses drugs, and when he doesn't get his way, he gets violent with his siblings. He's been in and out of jail, and upon each release, shows up on her doorstep. She won't let him in anymore.
"My situation has been a son that has mental illness and I'm afraid of him and I want to help him and I don't know how," Farah said in Somali as Abdulle translated.
I'm afraid of him and I want to help him and I don't know how. - Amina Farah
"We need to plan this. We want to make sure that other families don't go through this."
Farah is part of a new ad-hoc committee forming in Edmonton under the umbrella of the Alberta Somali Community Centre and the Ogaden Somali Community of Alberta.
The group is barely months-old, but has already attracted two dozen Somali-Canadian parents facing similar challenges.
They've yet to decide on a name, but their goal is clear: to reduce recidivism among their children by confronting the stigmatized mental health issues they believe led them toward criminal activity in the first place.
On Tuesday, Farah and her peers will meet with Alberta Health Minister Sarah Hoffman to discuss the need for more resources to address the mental health of Somali-Canadian youth who live in the shadow of a war their parents had hoped to leave behind.
'There was no plan for us'
When Asili Gelle arrived in Canada 15 years ago, her son Abdikarim Gelle was withdrawn, but she was unaware at the time of the severity of the battle he was fighting his own head.
Abdikarim Gelle was just seven years old when he was discovered alive at the bottom of a pile of corpses in a village near Mogadishu.
In his new home country, his criminal record became a lengthy list of assault charges, including sexual assault and the assault of a peace officer.
In jail, he was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, intellectual delays and substance abuse problems.
He was waiting in the Edmonton remand centre for deportation to Somalia, which wouldn't take him because he was mentally ill, when Asili Gelle shared the story with CBC News two months ago.
He's since been transferred to the Alberta Hospital to get the psychiatric help he needs.
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"Coming to Canada, we came without a plan and there was no plan for us," Asili Gelle said in Somali, translated by Abdulle. "We now understand what we have been through and identify what went wrong and what was not in place. We can put those things in place. We can start the process of overcoming this chapter of our life that's really dark."
Abdulle said it was after the Gelle family's story came out that parents began to rally for change.
"People have identified with her," Abdulle said. "People understand that they don't want their children to end up in the same situation."
Helping each other
Asha Abdulla has known for some time that she needs help.
Until recently, she didn't know how to ask for it.
The single mother of three has been trying to navigate Canada's complex institutions alone with her broken English since fleeing war-torn Somalia 20 years ago.
Her eldest son dropped out of high school and faces drug-related charges as an adult.
"I didn't know the system even though I have been here for enough time," Abdulla said in Somali, translated by Abdulle.
Abdulla doesn't want her son, who is up for trial in January, to end up back behind bars.
"I need help. I don't want him to go back to the same path. I want him to get intervention," Abdulla said through Abdulle.
I don't want him to go back to the same path. I want him to get intervention. - Asha Abdulla
Mohamed Mohamed nodded intermittently as the parents of other children talked. At 19, he was the youngest person participating in the discussion.
Finally, his father, Ali Mohamed, spoke. Through Abdulle, he explained that Mohamed Mohamed often talks to himself. He's stopped going to school. He wants to find a job, but he can't and his parents want to figure out how he can acquire the skills he needs to turn things around.
"I want to get help for him and I want him to be safe and I don't want him to end up like other kids who have experienced mental health and ended up in prison," Ali Mohamed said,as Abdulle translated.
The families want to help each other. They're facing similar issues. They suspect their children are struggling with undiagnosed mental illnesses and have been for quite some time. They're determined to find a way to tap into the resources they need.
Learning lessons
Other groups are doing it.
The Canadian Somali Mothers Association, an Ottawa-based group, has made significant strides drawing attention to the plight of families trying to navigate the justice system in that city.
Ahmed Abdulkadir, the executive director of the the Ogaden Somali Community of Alberta, has been in talks with the founder of the Canadian Somali Mothers Association, who is expected to come to Edmonton in April 2017 to share lessons that group has learned.
He said that group has been successful in gaining not only the support of the broader Somali community, but also other African communities and Muslim communities.
"There is a trauma that comes with Somalis going to war," Abdulkadir said. "That kind of experience, of course it contributes."
Alberta Somali Community Centre program manager Sudi Barre said she and her colleagues have been speaking with agencies supporting Syrian refugees now living in the city and suspect that many of them are struggling with mental-health challenges as well.
Barre said there is a lack of research in Canada about how immigrants who lived through civil war cope in their new country.
It's a red flag for Abdulle.
"We worry that they're going to have the same problems that we have," Abdulle said.
"The Somali community did not plan that. That issue of mental health was not in the picture. Nobody foresaw this. Hopefully, they won't go through the same process that Somalis are going through."