Diversity Fellow Project, Ashwak Hassan
Building Meaningful Community Connections (Hassan)
Building Meaningful Community Connections (2222 K) Download
Project Narrative
1. Please describe your activities during your Fellowship experience. Describe your final capstone project(s).
Historically within the Somali community, disability and mental health needs have been viewed as a disease, or ‘not normal’, or perhaps as the result of “sin.” Therefore, many individuals and families have been isolated from certain spaces such as the Mosque. The Mosque is an important integral part of the community where resources are shared, gatherings happen and families connect.
My work with my Diversity Fellow partner, Sheyhan Gelle, was first inspired by a local parent who had started a volunteer project to help children and families with neurodevelopmental disabilities have access to a Mosque and Dugsi located in St. Anthony, Minnesota, which is a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Dugsi is a weekend school where children learn about the Quran's teachings, Arabic alphabet/language, and Quran memorization. He created adaptive learning tools and techniques of teaching the Quran, the Islamic sacred book, to children. He focuses on helping them learn the text using color coding, for example, and using pictures to teach them about how to prepare to pray (ablutions) and how to pray in the Muslim tradition. By doing this, he has created a welcoming space where families and children can feel comfortable and safe. He shared and taught us (Diversity Fellows) about his journey and his adaptive teaching techniques.
Thus, our Dugsi partnership and learning inspired us to begin our own Diversity Disability Fellow Project, which has been to develop a new family-oriented Al-Rahman (“compassion & kindness”) Center for the Muslim disability community and our community allies. The Center will allow us to continue to learn more from and with parents who are dedicated to improving inclusion and creating awareness, as well as help us to build a larger support network among the various East African and Muslim communities in the metro area.
During our initial stages of developing Al-Rahman Center this year, we used our clocked Diversity Fellow hours as a means to take time to connect one-to-one with multiple metro area Imams (faith leaders) and Dugsi teachers to discuss our Center and to gather their social capital and support among their congregants. We also held multiple workshops and meetings with the larger Muslim community members at various events and had the chance to spend time and meet with Muslim families of children with disabilities across the Twin Cities to hear their stories and ask for what they desired for their children. We went to numerous Mosques, community cultural events, and Dugsi sites during the Ramadan season, and we could reach hundreds of community members. Our capstone will summarize the community engagement and learning activities we did with community and faith leaders to start to gain their support and trust, as we further aim to expand the Al-Rahman Center’s work in partnership with other partners working for inclusive spaces for children with disabilities and their families.
2. Who did your project inform, help, influence or impact? (UCEDD, individual, community, state) How?
Through our project we started a community dialogue on social stigma and disability, to provide a space to discuss options for inclusion and acceptance of disability instead, through awareness and tying the work to the deeply-rooted Islamic belief in compassionate and merciful action. We tackled difficult subjects such as notions of “cause,” stigmas, fears, misinformation, and discussed openly how the discomfort of congregants may prevent people with disabilities being meaningfully and holistically engaged in the local Mosque communities. Dugsi teachers and faith leaders were able to engage in the conversation with us and their members in regards to inclusion and accessibility. This current state of misunderstanding is compounded by the fact that each disability diagnosis brings its own unique challenges and strengths for the individuals, their families, and the greater community. For example, some disabilities are physical and accommodations in Mosque have been made. But, others who have disabilities that are cognitive, behavioral, or when people have disabilities that are a combination of physical and neurological disabilities, they have often historically faced exclusion and thus face little to no accommodations or supports for them to participate fully in their faith and social communities.
With the start of our efforts, we believe we have begun to plant the seeds to build a tangible support network of like-minded Imams, Dugsi teachers, community members, self-advocates, and their parents and families by continuing to build the Al-Rahman Center from a conceptual inclusive space (right now) to a future actual place where the community can come to learn more from each other and to build proactive community-based supports for people with disabilities.
3. Why did you choose to work on that project(s)?
I always have been engaged and participated in creating awareness and understanding about neurodevelopmental disabilities and it always has been my passion to ensure we build a more accepting and supportive inclusive community for all people with mental illness and NDD/IDD, and I am aware of the gaps in access to quality care that people with disabilities face in my own faith community.
This project has been a natural fit for my work as a family and child mental health specialist; it matches my background professionally and I just took the opportunity to further engage in leadership activities with the support of the Diversity Fellowship. I learned about the Fellowship from my ongoing support of work in the University of Minnesota’s Learn The Signs Act Early program and from my training as an MNLEND Fellow in 2015-16, and my strong connections with the staff at RTC-CL.
4. What did you gain from being a Diversity Fellow?
Through my fellowship, I was able to travel across the Twin Cities and meet with the local community, faith, and Dugsi leaders, as well as with many families who have members with a variety of disabilities. I was able to attend local conferences. I attended both the Autism Society of Minnesota Annual Conference (AUSM) in April 2019, and I also presented with the other Diversity Fellows on the Al-Rahman Center development at the National AAIDD Annual Conference, which was held in St. Paul this July 2019. From those two learning and sharing opportunities, I learned from other family members and professionals in regard to disability policy, research, and current laws.
The Fellowship also gave my Fellowship partner, Sheyhan Gelle, and I the opportunity to use our time as Diversity Fellows to build new professional and social ties with three other 2018-19 Diversity Fellows: Ruth Evangelista, Faviola Martinez de Estrada, and Carolina de la Rosa Mateo. From the hours we spent together brainstorming, checking in, and reporting back, we were able to encourage each other and share ideas across our cultural communities, so we could learn about new ways and ideas to better support children and families who may be facing aspects of stigma and isolation within our respective communities. We also were able to meet and connect with many of this year’s 2018-19 MNLEND Fellows at the AUSM conference and share resources and social and professional connections with each other.
5. How will this experience impact your education or career decisions?
I want to continue my advocacy work and continue engaging with faith leaders and stakeholders to further develop the Al-Rahman Center from idea to practice to eventually become an actual inclusive space. Through my Diversity Fellowship work, I met other stakeholders and I was recently offered a position with AuSM (Autism Society of Minnesota) as a Multicultural Coordinator in the Twin Cities region. This is a great opportunity to connect my rich community network with more resources and supports, and also I can help support and ensure that AuSM resources and supports are flexible and suitable in design for the many different cultural and disability communities across Minnesota.
6. What are your future goals? Where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
The Fellowship experience increased my interest in working in research, teaching, and policy work. I want to go into teaching, research, policymaking, and continue with my advocacy work. I think I can continue to develop my strengths and skills as a presenter, a social connector, and as a community trainer and mental health specialist for children and families.
7. What recommendations do you have for other fellows?
Have fun and enjoy the ride, as time goes by very quickly. Keep an open mind and use the time to develop strong social and professional ties not only with the University of Minnesota RTC-CL (ICI/UCEDD) and its MNLEND, ADDM, and LTSAE programs but also across cultural communities and disciplines. Building trust and then teaching about inclusion takes time and sensitivity to cultural beliefs and values. Look for creative ways to marry your passion for social inclusion for people with disabilities to the strong and positive values within the cultural group. By doing so you can begin to change the social and cultural landscape for the people you care deeply about.