Ontario is home to numerous organizations that support Somali language, community, and culture. Ottawa, pictured here, has a significant Somali-speaking community.
Written by Rebecca Schmor
Somali is a tonal, Afroasiatic language spoken by over 24 million people across Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, and diasporic communities around the world. In Ontario, there are over 36,000 Somali speakers, largely concentrated in the cities of Toronto and Ottawa. While Somali people have made significant contributions to the province’s cultural landscape, community members also experience racism, Islamophobia, and reduced socioeconomic status. To counter this, several Ontario-based community organizations are dedicated to improving the lives and livelihoods of Somali Canadians.
Somali Associations
The Somali Canadian Association is a non-profit organization dedicated to addressing the needs of Somali immigrants and refugees through culturally and linguistically relevant services, including legal assistance, education, and healthcare. Several other Somali associations across Ontario include the Somali Association of London, Canadian Somali Association of Toronto, and the Somali Canadian Association of Waterloo Region. These organizations support the welfare and wellbeing of the Somali community through advocacy efforts, job training, translation and interpretation services, housing and daycare referrals, culture and heritage events, and sports programming.
Somali Immigrant Aid
Funded in part by Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada, the Somali Immigrant Aid Organization supports newcomers from Somalia and other countries through youth employment services, mental health programs, and settlement assistance. The organization currently offers services in Somali, English, French, Arabic, and Swahili.
Somali Youth Coalition
The Somali Youth Coalition is a community outreach organization aimed at reducing risk factors for Somali youth by promoting staying in school, getting involved in community events, and developing young leaders and role models. In conjunction with the Somali Youth Association of Toronto, the coalition established the Somali Youth Recognition Awards in 2004 to celebrate the achievements and contributions of young Somali community members in education, business, and volunteerism.
Somali Resource and Heritage Center
The Somali Resource and Heritage Center is an Ottawa-based organization raising awareness about Somali literature, history, culture, and heritage through research, curation, and preservation efforts. They offer an extensive collection of books and videos in Somali.
Across Ontario, organizations like these are working tirelessly to support and sustain Somali language, culture, and community.
Cultural Community Organizations: Social Media Support
Activity Description
In this activity, learners research and write social media copy for an organization supporting an ethnic, immigrant, or cultural community of their choice. This activity is designed for intermediate language learners at the high school level or above, but can be adapted to other proficiency levels or contexts. Possible adaptations include modifying the format of the final task. For example, instead of writing social media copy, learners could produce videos.
Activity Steps
There are community organizations doing important work to support ethnic, immigrant, and cultural communities where you live. However, these organizations have limited funds to publicize their work on social media. With your group, you will research and develop social media content for an organization of your choice.
- Do some online research to find different ethnic, immigrant, and cultural community organizations. You may want to search for organizations supporting your own heritage community, or that of someone in your class. With your group, choose one organization. You can also choose one of the Somali organizations mentioned in the blog post above.
- Learn more about the community that your chosen organization serves. Gather information about their origins, history, needs, interests, cultural customs, and language(s).
- Based on the information you gathered in step 2, create a social media post in your target language that advertises the work of your chosen organization in a way that appeals to both the community it serves and the broader public. Make sure to visit the organization’s website or existing social media pages to understand what they do (i.e., what programs or services they offer) before deciding how this work could best be publicized on social media. In your social media post, include both images and text. You may want to include some text in the language spoken by the community.
- Share your post with another group and/or your teacher for feedback.
- (Optional) Share your post on a social media platform of your choice, tagging the organization if possible.
Activity Commentary
This activity supports collaborative, learner-centred approaches to language development. Students enact agency as they engage in collective decision-making processes to choose an organization and decide how to promote it on social media. Learners are encouraged to incorporate different languages in their post and adapt their text to audiences of different cultural backgrounds, activating intercultural mediation skills. The activity is authentic as it draws on real websites and social media platforms. It also has the social purpose of highlighting a community organization and raising awareness of the work that it does to support local ethnic, immigrant, or cultural communities.
