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Somali girls at the meeting on Sunday
Youth worker Sharhabeel Lone |
Somali youth make plea: 'Don't let this
happen again'
Warning after young man's murder
as Somali community mourn
THE Somali community mourning murdered teenager Mahir
Osman was warned this week it faces further tragedy in Camden
unless something is done to improve the lives of its young men.
At a four-hour meeting in Somers Town on Sunday, almost 100
Somalis listed the problems faced by their youth – cut
off from their parents’ generation of immigrants who fled
civil war and from the rest of British society.
Mahir’s father, Abdirahman, has already described British-Somali
teenagers as a “lost generation” and police, fearful
of reprisal attacks, this week repeated their appeal for calm.
On Sunday youth worker Sharhabeel Lone, who has worked with
Somali gangs in Kentish Town, said: “Let’s not kid
ourselves: if nothing is done, this will happen again.”
Speakers at the meeting, organised by Camden Somali Forum at
St Pancras Church Hall in Lancing Street, said Somali teenagers
in Camden had poor job prospects, a shortage of youth facilities,
bad role models, such as gangster rapper 50 Cent, and were used
to being stereotyped and mistreated by police.
They called for a dialogue between the generations and with
other ethnic communities, funding for youth services and a return
to traditional Muslim values.
Panel chairman Abdiwalli Mohamud said: “The Somali community
in Camden acknowledges the existence of several problems affecting
our integration into mainstream society, including some teenagers
using and selling drugs, and is committed to being part of the
solution.”
Omar Karshe, who runs the Somali Youth Resource Centre, the
only organisation that puts on activities exclusively for Camden’s
1,000 Somali teenagers, said: “We employ only two staff
but even that funding is under threat from April.
“The council talks about £14 million for youth services
but there is almost nothing for Somalis. They do not feel welcome
at the few youth clubs there are. They are cut apart.”
Mohammed Nur, who is standing as a Labour candidate in May’s
elections, urged Somalis to help solve their own problems. He
said: “Somali teenagers are not getting access to youth
facilities and that is discrimination. But you cannot blame
the council, social services and the police for everything.
“You have to ask why our children are in the streets, selling
drugs and taking drugs.”
He called on parents to be more understanding of children who
had grown up in this country.
He said: “In Somalia there is absolute respect for parents.
If the parent says something the child does it. But here parents
must learn to treat them as adults who can make choices.”
He was backed by 24-year-old Ahmed Nur, who said he had been
involved in trouble when he was younger, but had now settled
down with the help of religion and his wife.
“Parents have to learn to be friends to their children,
so there is a dialogue and they at least know where there children
are,” he said. |
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