Meet Zuhur Ahmed of the Egal Shidad Project in Mpls/St. Paul

Posted by Sara Rohde  January 13, 2009

Zuhur Ahmed provides the voice for Egal Shidad's sister in the story written by Said Salah Ahmed and performed in the Egal Shidad television and radio programs.  Zuhur is a student at the University of Minnesota.  She also works for Community University Health Care Center in Minneapolis, and hosts a weekly radio show called Somali Community Link on KFAI, Radio Without Boundaries.

1.  Tell us what it means to be an immigrant in America.

Being an immigrant means, coming to new place, new culture, new environment. It has its positives and negatives. it comes with a lot of struggles, especially when you trying to adopt to your new environment. That itself is a long journey to many people and previous European immigrants were able to assimilate and become part of the melting pot, of course after a long struggle. Being a new immigrant in this country, especially being a Somali immigrant is far from assimilating. Language barriers, religion difference and cultural difference, all play major roles in the immigrant's life. The positive side to immigration is what originally drove the immigrant to migrate, which is to find better life than one back home. 

2.  For better or worse, how can or how does media (TV, Movies, radio, news stories) make a difference in immigrants' lives?

Media always plays a major role in people's life. Dependence on how they portray them, they can either present a positive image of them, by viewing their difference from the main society as a positive thing and a good add-on to the main culture. Similarly, they can present their contribution to the main society as a negative thing.

3. Tell us about an interesting or wise practice from another culture that you wish Americans would adopt.

The most respected practice I very much honor about Somali immigrants, and many other immigrants, is the practice of giving. As we know, hardly would we notice this being practice. One of the norms of the main stream society is being selfish and only caring for your self, and the practice of giving is a good practice that the main stream society can adopt from the immigrants.

4. How could immigrant health and well-being be improved in your city or in the US?

I believe the health and the well being of the immigrants can be improved by providing more educational resources such as MIHV's educational projects and ECHO TV, etc. More of these kinds of programs most definantly will help immigrants have more knowledge about health resources that are out there for them. Again, education is the key to the cure of any diseases.

5.  Tell us something about your background that led you to become the person you are today.  What is your greatest motivation or who is your greatest motivator?

There is always a leader and a follower, and it is up to any one which one they want to choose. As for me I choose to a become a leader.  My motive was experiencing the death of my little brother in Somalia due to lack of adequate health care and struggles of migration later on. From then on, I new I wanted to make difference in people's lives through actively being involved in the community and by becoming a doctor, I hope to do more.

Tags: Egal Shidad Project, mental health, Zuhu Ahmed
Topics: Building Community, Capacity Building, Citizenship, Community Health, Community Media, Ethnic Media, Immigrants, Journalism, Language, Media production, Mental health, New Routes Leaders, Refugees, Storytelling



Comments

Giving

Submitted by Gale Petersen on January 13, 2009 - 7:17pm.
I like what Zuhur Ahmed has said about giving. It isn't a big part of our typical US culture, but as the recession keeps getting deeper and people become more worried, I see more sharing. This is just among those I know in my little corner of Madison. It does seem as though when people have less they give more. This seems like the small, good thing that might come out of the recession. Gale Petersen Media and Technology Co-Director
  • 0 votes

Ethics

Submitted by Imarion on July 12, 2010 - 6:31am.

Although freedom of movement is often recognized as a civil right, the freedom only applies to movement within national borders: it may be guaranteed by the constitution or by human rights legislation. Additionally, this freedom is often limited to citizens and excludes others. No state currently allows full freedom of movement across its borders, and international human rights treaties do not confer a general right to enter another state. According to Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to leave or enter a country, along with movement within it (internal migration). Some argue that the freedom of movement both within and between countries is a basic human right, and that the restrictive immigration policies, typical of nation-states, violate this human right of freedom of movement. Such arguments are common among anti-state ideologies like anarchism and libertarianism. As philosopher and "Open Borders" activist Jacob Appel has written, "Treating human beings differently, simply because they were born on the opposite side of a national boundary, is hard to justify under any mainstream philosophical, religious or ethical theory.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  • 1 vote