Hussein Issack came to Louisville, Kentucky six years ago to start a new life for himself and his family. His resettlement journey was aided and sometimes guided by staffs at Catholic Charities and included an opportunity to participate in the RAPP sponsored Community Garden.
 
Hussein quickly emerged as a leader within Louisville's Somali Bantu community and helped form a non-profit corporation, the Somali Bantu Association of Louisville Inc. where he currently serves as the organization's Vice President. The Association's main work is providing ESL and citizenship classes to members, but it also established an independent community garden for the Somali Bantu community that spun off from the larger RAPP garden started by Catholic Charities.
 
Hussein says that he and the Association was successful in starting their garden because "the leaders of the Somali Bantu Association led by example! We did not just talk about people becoming self-sufficient--each Board Member got garden space within the larger garden and worked in it every day. We didn't just talk, we worked. Before long, other members of the community  joined us and now we have 12 families working in the garden every day."
 
By any measure, the Somali Bantu Association's community garden is a success. After learning gardening skills--"how to" farm in Kentucky's climate from Catholic Charities--Hussein and his colleagues graduated from the RAPP sponsored garden and independently started a garden that has given the Association organizational experience, has supplemented its members diets and saved them money, and has improved urban land that was otherwise under-utilized and unproductive. "We have earned the community's trust and made their lives safer," says Hussein. "We are proud of what we have done."
 
Hussein doesn't see himself as a "hero" for attaining a critical RAPP outcome (replicating the agency garden) but we see similarities between his work in Louisville and that of Barack Obama's work as a community organizer in Chicago. Hussein smiles at the comparison. "I am not going to be President," he says, "But I am happy about what we have accomplished."

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photo: Hussein Issack, 3rd from the right, stands between ORR Program Office Larry Laverentz (L) and Technical Assistance Provider Stephen Bartlett, at the Catholic Charities' RAPP Community Garden in Louisville, Kentucky.

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