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Somali businesswomen in
Minn. join forces
,April 03, 2008 Somali
businesswomen are coordinating an effort to open
a cooperative department store in Minneapolis.
MINNEAPOLIS -- Fadumo
Abdinur sells scarves, skirts, perfume, and odds
and ends out of a 10-by-10-foot kiosk at a
bazaar, paying $562 each month to rent the
space. But she'd like to find her way out.
"I want to be able to be more independent," said
the Somali immigrant, offering a visitor a whiff
of jasmine from a bottle on the shelf. "I want
to own my own store."
In the next few months, Abdinur and a few dozen
others in one of the nation's largest
concentration of Somali immigrants may get that
wish.
While Somali women have run small shops for
years in Minneapolis, few have evolved beyond
serving small cliques of fellow immigrants. But
by pooling their money in a collective model
used in Somalia, several of these shopkeepers
are on the road to opening a cooperative
department store that would cater to a broader
audience and give them a greater stake in their
financial future.
A promising idea is beginning to take shape
after two years of planning: 21 women have
pledged $500 apiece, and two business groups
have each provided $20,000 for the development
of a 10,000- to 15,000-square-foot mall of
shops. Plans are to rent space in an undisclosed
Minneapolis building by this summer, with
perhaps 50 women eventually investing $5,000
apiece.
It would be the first such women's Somali
cooperative in the country, according to people
involved in the enterprise. Most of the
merchandise, as is the case at the existing
Somali shops, will be imported from India, China
or other countries.
"After going to so many Somali teas, these women
finally said, 'We want our own mall,"' said
Sabah Yusuf, who is coordinating the effort
through her work as director of the Aishah
Center for Women, named for a wife of the
Prophet Muhammad.
"I think there is the sense out there that we
are the new kid on the block," she said. "Not a
lot of people think we will be able to make it."
Minnesota, with its two prominent resettlement
agencies, Catholic Charities and Lutheran Social
Service, has one of the largest concentrations
of Somalis in the country. State demographers
estimated that by 2005, 25,000 Somalis had
resettled in the state since the early 1990s,
when their country disintegrated into
lawlessness. Somali leaders claim the population
is at least twice the estimated figure.
In a pattern seen in many other cities with
large immigrant populations, recent immigrant
groups to Minnesota have found business success
in the ethnic melting pot of south Minneapolis.
About 250 Latino-owned shops, for instance, line
a once-dilapitated stretch of Lake Street. A
collection of ethnic restaurants and shops, the
Midtown Global Market, also opened in 2006 along
the avenue.
For Somali women, however, greater success has
been out of reach. Many of the women who are
investing in the mall can't read or write,
though they are whizzes with numbers because
they're already running their own shops.
Moreover, their project appears to merge Western
business practices with a shared model used back
home.
Known as a hagebad, the system involves each
woman contributing money to a kitty, some of
which can be tapped by one woman each month on a
rotating basis. It's a way to share capital and
provide money to women who may avoid credit or
other banking services because of their
religious beliefs. Islam forbids charging or
paying interest, which keeps many Muslims, who
make up most of Minnesota's Somali community,
away from most commercial banking.
"It's very common in Africa for women to come
together and put their money and their resources
together," said Fadumah Hashi, who runs a Somali
bakery at the Midtown Global Market. "The men
are always off doing their own thing."
That has been especially true in recent years in
Somalia, where many men have been killed in
civil war while others have sent their families
abroad.
Some shopkeepers, Yusuf said, are also slow to
branch out because they believe that God will
provide them with what they need and that women
from their tribe will support their business.
"I have had to tell some of these women, 'That's
a religion mentality talking, but there is also
a business mentality to consider here,"' she
said.
Indeed, 34 women have already come to workshops
at Aishah to learn about everything from
contracts to reading the fine print in leases.
Hussein Samatar, a Somali business consultant in
the Twin Cities, said immigrant women who have
run small shops need to broaden their market
niche if they are going to succeed.
"The way it is now, you almost have to be
African to take advantage - you have to be
somebody who knows the inner workings of the
community if you are going to buy from them," he
said. "This would be much easier. It would help
them fully realize that."
The Women's Foundation of Minnesota and the
Christian Sharing Fund, an arm of the Catholic
Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, have
each contributed $20,000 in seed money toward
the planning of the department store.
"They are really thinking outside of the box,
and they're determined," said Cheryl Peterson,
who helps to coordinate the Catholic fund. "I
think they are breaking out and trying to think
differently about where they are and who they
are."
For Abdinur, who came to the United States a
decade ago after fleeing Somalia for Kenya, the
cooperative offers the chance for her shop,
Jamilo Store, to reach more people and prosper.
"Just look around at how small this is," she
said. "I need something better."
-ABClocal
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