Until he was 27 and was relocated as a refugee from Somalia to St. Louis, Omar Podi’s life was one of continual discord.
As a child, he was forced to flee his home during civil war. As a teenager, he lost both parents. As a young man, he was wounded by a bullet, and later survived years in one of the largest, most crowded, most dangerous refugee camps in the world.
Arriving in St. Louis in 2007 was startling for Podi. He was free. But since then, he has been troubled by the memory of what it was like to be a teenager. At the age of 30, Podi has decided he needs to change things for as many Somali teenage boys as he can.
He wants to save them from gangs, from terrorist networks, and from the boredom that can lead to either. He wants to save teenagers in both St. Louis and in Dagahaley, the refugee camp where he spent nine years, and where he began third grade at the age of 20.
To do so, Podi, a devout Muslim, is founding Somali Youth Community Services to create programs that he hopes will help St. Louis’ estimated 300 Somali teens stay out of trouble. And he’s relying on the experience and support of a St. Louis organization that helps African immigrants and is housed in an Episcopal church next to Tower Grove Park.
Podi also wants to raise enough money to provide computers to the desperately poor and susceptible teenage boys in the refugee camps. He feels doing these things will make both the world he knew, and the world he knows now, better places.
“The youth can have peace here, and they can have peace in my country, but there are people that try to mislead them,” Podi said. “They just need to know there’s help.”
A LIFE OF INJURY, DEATH
In 1991, when he was 10, Podi’s country collapsed into a civil war. His family fled from Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, to Kismayo, in the south. The next year, his father, a government worker, tried to return to Mogadishu, and was killed. Podi is the oldest of 13 children and he is still grateful for American soldiers who, he says, helped his family to survive a humanitarian crisis in 1993.
The family lived in Kismayo for eight years. Podi’s mother died there. He was left to protect his siblings. Kismayo was a dangerous place, and Podi’s right arm and hand, mangled by a shooting in 1999, are evidence of the violence that was part of everyday life as a Somali teenager.
When he was 18, Podi fled Kismayo to Dagahaley, a section of one of the largest refugee camps in the world in the border town of Dadaab, Kenya. Today, 300,000 Somalis are squeezed into space built for 90,000 and the Kenyan government has resisted requests to expand it.
“Picture being in an urban slum, but in a very dry environment where there’s little rain,” said Joel Charny, vice president for policy at Refugees International. “It’s a real community, but it’s a rough community with very little economic opportunity.”
Like any city, there’s crime, commerce, desperate poverty, some relative wealth and violence, Charny said. There are mosques, butcher shops, schools, homes. But no security. It’s easy for extremist insurgent operatives to move into the camps, establish networks and recruit teens, Charny said.
Those operatives are members of al-Shabab, or “the youth,” a terrorist organization affiliated with al-Qaida.
Reaching out to these teens is at the center of Podi’s plan. In an August fundraising letter for his fledgling organization, Podi said “the majority of youth” in the Kenyan refugee camps “do not see a future; they do not have hope.”
Elizabeth Ferris, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said the refugee camps in Dadaab are desolate places.
“Young men often have nothing to do,” Ferris explained. “Boredom and hopelessness are great … and when people don’t have hope, bad things happen.”
Hopelessness leaves young Somali men two options, Podi wrote in his fundraising letter: “immigration, or recruitment to fight in Somalia.”
Somalia, a Muslim nation, and its mostly Christian neighbor to the west, Ethiopia, have a history of conflict. As recently as 2006, Ethiopian forces invaded Somalia to suppress its Islamist government. Al-Shabab has skillfully informed a call to jihad against Ethiopia with religious and nationalistic significance that appeals to Somalia’s bored and desperate teenagers, according to Africa analysts.
In recent years, al-Shabab has exported that message far beyond Somalia’s borders to the estimated 200,000-member Somali community in the United States. Since 2006, as many as 20 young men have disappeared from Minneapolis’ large Somali community. Six are believed to have died after joining al-Shabab.
The worry among law enforcement officials is about those who return to the United States after terrorist training abroad. The U.S. government has indicted 14 people for recruiting and raising funds to take young Somali American men back to a homeland they barely know, to join al-Shabab.
Mike Kaste, the FBI’s St. Louis field office assistant special agent in charge, would not say whether there was an ongoing investigation of the Somali community in St. Louis, which numbers between 1,500 and 3,000, according to the International Institute of St. Louis. But Kaste did say the possibility of al-Shabab recruiting in St. Louis was on the FBI’s radar.
“We are concerned about it,” he said. “We are concerned about the radicalization of anybody — not just teenagers — in any city.”
GETTING STARTED HERE
After arriving in St. Louis, Podi got a job at Eagle Industries, a military and law enforcement contractor in Fenton that makes everything from tactical vests to gear bags to weapon cases.
Last summer, he approached the African Mutual Assistance Association of Missouri for help getting his nonprofit group started.
“What he said made sense to me,” said Gedlu Metaferia, the organization’s executive director. “To keep young Somalis from being recruited or indoctrinated by extremist forces, that is in all our best interest.”
There was something of an irony in Metaferia’s embrace of Podi’s idea. His organization was once called the Ethiopian Community Association of Missouri.
“He talked about tolerance and about dialogue and about the need for interfaith understanding,” said Metaferia, who is Christian. “When a young man comes to you with a good idea, you try to help.”
Podi said he learned about Christianity in the refugee camp and that he has read the Bible.
“Muslims and Christians, we sat together in class,” he said. “We were brothers.”
Metaferia agreed to give Podi an office, a phone line and an Internet connection at his group’s headquarters in St. John’s Episcopal Church in St. Louis. In March, Metaferia said he will help Podi register the new organization with the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office.
“He has the patience and stamina to be a leader,” Metaferia said of Podi. “We’ll show him how to build his organization and how to reach out to youths.”
Similar efforts to connect Somali leaders with community organizations and law enforcement have begun elsewhere. Kaste said Minneapolis was a lesson, and the FBI was working with the St. Louis Muslim community to warn members about signs that teenagers may be in trouble.
“Jihad is really not the way to go,” Kaste said. “It’s not a way for young people to go to make any kind of constructive change in their lives.”
Podi believes that access to computers will be a constructive change to Somali teenagers’ lives, both in St. Louis and in Dadaab. Computers could give them something to do, provide them with a skill and give them access to information.
And Podi has already had some success. In September, he convinced St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay’s campaign organization to donate five computers and four monitors to Somali Youth Community Services.
Podi knows getting computers overseas is a logistical challenge he doesn’t know how to tackle. However he proceeds, it’s likely Podi has a long learning curve to achieve his goals. And computers are only part of his plan. Podi is also hoping to organize a soccer league for Somali teens in St. Louis.
In December, he sent a Christmas message to potential supporters of the yet-to-be-born Somali Youth Community Services.
“We can remove violence only by working together,” he wrote.
_____
St Louis Today
