Wednesday December 16, 2015
By Lauren Scharf
More than a thousand people from Somalia live in Lexington and many say they feel like the city isn't treating them like real members of the community. They wish leaders would do more to reach out.
Many Somali people feel like they haven't been given the opportunity to really learn English and wish the city, government or someone would help.
They say 80 percent of those from Somalia who live in Lexington don't speak or read English. "I like my job so I don't English well," said Farah Dubow.
Many coming to work in the Tyson plant are refugees and have been here for over a decade. "We are law abiding citizens people we get our citizen and we get our green card and we are citizens at least a hundred or three hundred are citizen now," explained Somali Community Chairman Shukri Abdi.Like Halima Alas she simply memorized the citizen test, but still isn't fluent. She thinks the mayor could do more for her people. "We brought him here to this place we talked to him,” Alas said. “We went to his office so many times, he doesn't put any effort he doesn't see us as a part of the community."
Mayor John Fagot feels they should take more responsibility get people within their community to step up.
"We are asking for a place we can teach ourselves English a place where our community can be helpful to our children to get after club programs and help our elders to learn English," Dubow said.
Fagot also points to programs offered by the local college which accommodate to the schedule at the plant and keep the cost low only $20 a year, but many Somali’s said there is too much of a communication barrier without a teacher who is fluent in both languages.
"So we were asking the government the city any organization which is there to help us so we can get the education so we can get computers so we can get a bigger place so we can learn our English and be a part of society," said Smatar Ali.
There will be a public hearing in Lexington Tuesday to discuss more about this issue.