Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Somali group doing good and changing lives

We applaud the work being done by the Somali Bantu Youth Association to channel the energies of boys and young men in the right direction.

A story Sunday explained how the two-year-old group became concerned that some immigrant youths were smoking, getting into fights and dropping out of school.

It is hard for any of us to imagine the challenges these young people face in adapting to another culture.

Many have grown up in refugee camps overseas, some without having received any formal schooling.

While the U.S. is a land of opportunity, nothing comes easily in a society that rewards learning, perseverance and hard work.

The Somali Bantu Youth Association has much the same mission as groups that have come before — to use athletics to keep young people out of trouble while offering them a guiding hand.

From Police Athletic Leagues to youth football to YMCAs and Boy Scouts, millions of young people have been put on the path to a productive life.

The combination of outdoor activity and adult guidance does work.

In addition to soccer, the Somali Youth Association offers help with schoolwork, provides mentors who work with students, gives counseling and arranges guest speakers, including police officers.

The ambitious organization also provides parenting support and classes to help adults become U.S. citizens and translators.

About 150 youths now play in two soccer divisions, one for younger boys and another for those ages 13 to 18.

There are no girls' teams yet. The boys were targeted because they were the ones getting into trouble, mirroring a serious problem in U.S. society at large. Boys too often fall behind girls in educational achievement at an early age.

Nearly a year ago, we wrote another editorial that took the immigrant community to task for what police said were a series of attacks on vulnerable people in and around Kennedy Park.

The suspects were reported by police to be as young as 8 and as old as 20. At the time we condemned what we saw as a pattern of lawlessness and the absence of parental control.

Since then, that problem has all but disappeared. Credit for that goes, in part, to the Lewiston police and its community policing program. But credit also belongs to the Somali parents and the youth association.

The group shows that immigrant parents want the same thing all Americans want for their children — for them to learn, grow and succeed in this society.

The association shows its is willing to work to achieve that.

Source: editorialboard@sunjournal.com

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