Ducking, visitors quickly learn, is a valuable skill for spectators at Coach Ahmed Ismail's soccer practices at the Phillips Community Center in south Minneapolis.
Ismail's West Bank Athletic Club, which serves about 180 kids in the Twin Cities' large Somali-American community, operates on a bare-bones budget. There are no goal nets at today's practice and just one soccer ball so worn its patches are barely visible. When one of the long-limbed athletes is in scoring position, the ball whizzes by those on the bleachers and smacks the wall behind them, earning a coveted "Gool qurux badan baa dhalisey!" (Beautiful goal!) from Coach Ahmed, as his players call him with affection.
Many of those who come to play are sitting in the bleachers, too. With inadequate funding to rent facilities elsewhere, Ismail, a father of three who drives in from suburban Savage most days, has a partitioned half of the community center's dated gym for his athletes. That forces him to play the youths in shifts so that each of the 40-plus Somali-American teen boys at this day's practice gets a turn.
Even those waiting to play, however, are fortunate. There are 140 youngsters on a waiting list who want to play, too, but the nonprofit club's limited finances mean it can't expand, a situation that other Somali-American youth development programs struggle with as well.
In other cities, this unmet need would be a local concern. But with poverty plaguing this impoverished immigrant community — the nation's largest Somali settlement — and terrorist recruiters preying on its young people, the lagging support for organizations directly aiding vulnerable young people is a national security crisis requiring swift remedy. Research shows that social programs are critical in preventing radicalization, yet the federal and state governments are failing to adequately fund basic steps to build community resilience.
Congress and the Obama administration need to work together to get past gridlock and boost funding that has fallen far short of the rhetoric from President Obama and others about countering radicalization. But given federal inaction, and the economic challenges facing Somali-Americans here, a Minnesota-made solution also is needed.
It's increasingly urgent for the state's lawmakers, business community and respected nonprofits to take their support to the next level. A logical start on it is passing three bills in the Legislature that currently face daunting headwinds in a short session where there's little time and when anti-immigrant rhetoric is shamefully shaping election-year rhetoric. The bills would expand a vital Cedar-Riverside neighborhood center, boost opportunities for youth employment and provide $2 million for Somali-American youth development grants.
The West Bank Athletic Club would be eligible to compete for these additional grant dollars. More funding would help the organization include kids on its waiting list, buy better equipment, travel or host more tournaments, and perhaps even find alternatives to having Ismail and his volunteer assistants use their own vehicles to pick up kids for practice. "This is my dream,'' he said.