Our man in Willmar
Call him “our man in Willmar.” Abdi Duh, founder of the Coalition of African Community Services of Kandiyohi County, is ADC’s first partner in serving growing African populations in Greater Minnesota. Working as a part-time volunteer on a shoestring budget, Duh (pronounced Dooh) has led a small group of community advocates in organizing an array of social, education and economic services for the area’s estimated 2,000 native Africans. ADC has begun lending its expertise and fundraising clout to build partnerships with larger community agencies in Central Minnesota that can provide Duh’s organization with the staffing and other resources needed to expand its vital work.
Duh is a sophisticated, persistent and large-hearted man for whom Willmar marks the latest step in a long journey of service. A fortunate son of Somalia, he came to the United States for college in 1983, earning a masters degree in public administration from San Diego State University right about the time the disastrous civil war broke out in his homeland. Seeing an influx of Somali refugees unprepared for life in a new country that was itself unprepared to integrate them, Duh dedicated his energies to “do whatever was needed” to bridge the vast cultural gap for the benefit of those on both sides.
While raising his family in Southern California, he worked on refugee assistance from several angles. In the late 1990s, taking a break from providing employment services for a large government contractor, Duh traveled throughout Europe and made contact with friends and extended family from Somalia who had fled the civil war. His return flight brought him through the Twin Cities, where more friends introduced him to the extensive Somali refugee community. Here, Duh says, he discovered greater potential to make a difference than anywhere else he’d traveled. He stayed, quickly networking his way into political advocacy. In 2002, newly elected Minneapolis mayor RT Rybak appointed Duh to the city’s Human Rights Commission. He also joined the board of LegalCORPS, a pro bono service providing nonprofits and micro-businesses in Minnesota free legal assistance on transactional matters.
Meanwhile, Duh had stopped to check in on friends who had headed into rural Minnesota for the city of Willmar, where a large turkey processing plant offered plenty of unskilled jobs that immigrants could qualify for. In Willmar, population 15,000, Duh witnessed what he calls “total culture shock running both ways.” The African immigrants, predominately fellow Somalis, lived in utter isolation near the campus of a local community college. They had no social contact with the town, and the local people were baffled at best by their presence. “Each group was completely foreign to the other,” Duh recalls.
So he put his expertise to work, driving the creation of the Coalition of African Community Services in 2000. He took a job as a translator for the local health system in order to deepen his connections and fund the operation of the nonprofit.
In the years since, Duh and core of volunteers have provided a wide range of services: acculturation, transportation, legal, employment, housing, health and financial education, business development, youth empowerment and after-school tutoring. Duh has become a well-known advocate by public services, banks, schools, employers, landlords and churches in Willmar. The Coalition’s 11-member board includes a mix of community leaders and Somali immigrants.
The organization has also forged partnerships with other agencies serving Central Minnesota, including the St. Cloud Area Somali Community, Minnesota Department of Human Services, West Central Legal Aid, the Heartland Community Action Agency and others. Funding from the Minnesota Department of Human Services, First Presbyterian Church in Willmar, Willmar Foundation, Otto Bremer Foundation, Blandin Foundation and the Southwest Initiative Foundation has allowed the Coalition to open an office and pay Duh a part-time salary.
In the near term, ADC hopes to organize additional funding that would enable Duh to hire two professional staffers. ADC will also contribute program expertise in financial literacy education, home ownership training and business development, with the hope of eventually becoming a source of commercial micro-lending.
Through partnerships with local leaders like Abdi Duh, ADC is reaching beyond the Twin Cities to fulfill its mission of statewide service to African immigrants and refugees.
