Thursday November 29, 2018
Kabul (BNA) Mohammad Noormal inserts two metal skewers into a clay oven at Ohio City Farm and pulls out a fragrant, wood-fired flatbread the size of a large pizza. This seemingly small act is another coalescent moment for the Afghan refugee and The Refugee Response, an area group that helped Noormal and his family after they came to America.
Noormal, 27, a former resident of Jalalabad, worked five years alongside U.S. troops in Afghanistan as a translator. Once that job was over, there was no way to stay in his home country. Not without retribution.
“We were in danger of our lives from the Taliban and al-Qaeda,” he said. A special visa brought him to Cleveland in 2014 with his wife Rana, now 25. Since then they've had a son, Yousuf, now 4 and a daughter, Hadya, 15 months. At the time he was coming here, Refugee Response was also turning wider attention to the plight of Afghans, winning a grant to help 40 women relocated to Cleveland, teaching them English and helping them navigate their new home. Noormal is now manager of that tutoring program. He and his wife also bake bread for special events and the group’s community supported agriculture program.
Refugees everywhere scramble to create new lives for themselves. In a strange parallel, Refugee Response also had to face reinvention. In 2016, budget cuts left the group without $75,000 in federal support, about 15 percent of its income, which it had used to employ and resettle a rotating 10-member staff of various nationalities at Ohio City Farm. Many of those workers farmed in their home countries and were selected for that skill. It was one less thing to learn on their new journey, and a key piece in building a food-based foundation for Refugee Response. The new Afghan tutoring program is just one of several changes Refugee Response has made since the loss of the grant.
The group expanded its operation at the farm, taking over most of the six-acre property at West 24th Street and Bridge Avenue, a block from West Side Market. Seen as the country’s largest urban farm when it began in 2010, it has attracted attention for the amount and quality of what it grows. The farm is fine-tuning its relationship with major restaurant clients such as Great Lakes Brewing Company, The Flying Fig and Urban Farmer, inviting closer collaboration on which vegetables to grow.
Electricity, better plumbing and a new, heated hoop house have extended the farm’s season and helped it add bulk herb dehydration. The expansion of acres allowed the farm to take on more customers for its community supported agriculture, or farm share, program. This year’s list of subscribers tripled to 150. Outside of farming, Refugee Response has also accepted a grant to set up a social and employment support system for teen refugees at John Marshall High School. They hail from The Congo, Syria, Iraq, Nepal and Myanmar. Their parents don’t always understand the legal and career necessities for a secondary education, says Patrick Kearns, executive director of Refugee Response. “Nobody from the refugee community,” he adds, “passes their GED [general education degree] without going to high school.” The new clay oven will be used in a series of three Afghan food culture events in 2019, plus public classes in bread-baking and any catered events at the farm, including the group’s annual benefit.
Cleveland