In the back of a large indoor mall on Morse Road in Columbus, Ohio, Somali children are making cards to send to refugees of Japan’s nuclear disaster. The project is part of a week-long summer arts camp funded by the Somali Women & Children’s Alliance (SWCA) and developed in collaboration with Ruth Smith, a second-year master’s candidate in art education.

“The idea of partnering with SWCA to design an arts program based upon Somali community culture, rather than a rigid set of curriculum, intrigued me,” said Smith.

Ohio has the second largest Somali population in the nation; over 40,000 Somali refugees call Columbus home. They have been displaced from their homelands by war, disease, poverty, and violence. The SWCA offers a variety of programs, including Afterschool programs, designed to prepare refugees and immigrants for their new role in American society and to support them in achieving their full potential as residents and citizens.

Smith began volunteering for the SWCA’s Afterschool program last year, working alongside staff and volunteers to identify ways to integrate arts activities into homework. In writing the proposal for the summer arts camp, Smith incorporated into the project’s structure and curriculum much of what she learned working with staff, volunteers, parents and children involved with the SWCA community.

“My first priority was to establish a collaborative team consisting of young adults in the Somali community and students from Ohio State,” explained Smith.  The first hires – two youth assistants – came from the Somali Unified Youth project.  Katie Schuler, another master’s candidate in art education at Ohio State, rounded out the camp team.

Nasra Abdulkadir and Abdul Mire are college students; Abdulkadir attends ITT where she is studying criminology and Mire is enrolled in the Respiratory Care Program at Columbus State Community College. As part of the Somali Unified Youth organization, they believe it is their responsibility to reach out and support young people to become good leaders of tomorrow.

“This art camp is so important because it helps the kids stay focused and offers them  new experiences – both in the classroom and out in the community,” said Mire. Abdulkadir echoed his sentiments. “The children learn so much about their culture, what community is all about, and, at the same time, discover the arts in an entirely new way.”

Whether the children are creating collages, painting, designing dioramas, dancing, or orchestrating puppet shows, they do their work as a community, reflecting, in part, the deep commitment to community that exists among Somali refugees and their children.  No one works alone; no one creates in a vacuum.

Smith’s graduate program specialization is museum education and community programming. She is excited about the potential for crafting new ways of learning that comes from bringing different cultures together. She is mindful as well of the need to approach programming as collaboration rather merely a laboratory for her research.

“I don’t want to come into this community, do my research and leave,” she states. “I believe that I have a responsibility to offer something more sustainable – to work with a community in an ethical and meaningful way.”

Summer camp ended August 5. When the school year begins, Smith will be back at the SWCA, volunteering once a week in the Afterschool program, and building her research with ideas around sustainable volunteer practices and community-based curriculum.