It is almost a month later when my dear friend Hussein Samatar passed away. This is probably the hardest post I have ever written simply because a month later, I am still in shock and sad.
Hussein has been in support of Somali autism families from the get go. He would always say “it is our children and they come first”. I remember vividly the first time I contacted him about autism and Minneapolis school district. He was direct and helpful the first time. He immediately spoke with Minneapolis school officials and got answers for us.
There are too many times to count when Hussein helped us with autism, but memorable ones were when we advocated a Federal grant for Somali autism study and there were some disagreements in how the research would be done. We were asking more Somali community involvement and Univ of MN wanted less. We met at Hussein’s office with many officials from University of Minnesota including Dr. Quam – Dean of CEHD, Dr. Neglia – Dept of Pediatrics head at Univ of MN, Dr. Johnson – Director of ICI at UofMN, Dr. Reiff – Director of LEND, Dr. Mendoza – Associate Vice Provost at Office of Equity and Diversity at UofMN, Dr. Esler, Dr. Fahia – Director of Confederation Somali Community of Minn, Mr. Mohamed – Director of Somali American Parent Assoc, Anne Harrington (our friend) Abdirahman Adem from Mpls School District, Said Garaad – Mpls School District, Dr. Reichle from LEND program, Dr. Hewitt From LEND program at Univ of MN, (Istahil, Hodan and Myself – Parents), And the first thing Hussein who opened the meeting said was (we support these parents and their children 100% with no hesitation, what they want is what we want).
I have to say that totally set the tone of the meeting and the agenda from there on. I along with thousands of autism families in Minnesota will always be grateful and remember Hussein for his kindness and straight talk.
Another time, Hussein went with us to Governor Dayton’s office where we had a meeting with MDH and DHS folks about autism of course and again he said the same-thing that the community supports these parents and their children. Again when we met in his office with folks from CDC, he simply gave us the same support. If I list the number of times, Hussein helped us – I can write for days, including the endless times he helped individual autism families as recent as June of this year.
Hussein helped so many people from so many different issues and concerns from Autism to housing to business to civic engagement. He was an amazing and talented person who seemed to have energy that was infectious and a smile that never ended.
I hope his legacy continues for our community in Minnesota and I pray for his family and friends.
Ilaahay samir ha inaga wada siiyo. Ilaahayna Hussein ha u naxariisto, Aamiin!…May God Bless his soul and May he rest in peace!..
Thanks!
Idil