Shamso Issak On Empowering South King County’s Immigrant Communities Through Living Well Kent
Shamso Issak, the Founder and Executive Director of Living Well Kent recently joined The Day With Trae to discuss her work. This organization is dedicated to empowering Kent and South King County residents, focusing on refugees and immigrants from non-English speaking backgrounds by equipping them with the essential tools to navigate and thrive within their community. Drawing from her experiences as an immigrant from Somalia, Issak's journey has been a foundation builder for her organization.
" I came to this country 38 years ago and am still learning new things about the United States," Issak said. "So you could imagine someone who's new, who came from a war-torn country, with children and with no job and no language skills, and trying to survive in this country."
Kent was recently ranked the fifth most ethically diverse city in the U.S., according to a recent study done by WalletHub. With factors such as gentrification and expensive housing making Seattle harder to live in, immigrants and refugees moving into Washington often turn to South King County. This influx has created a sizeable multicultural community comprising individuals for whom English is not their primary language. With an ever-growing need for resources and information, Living Well Kent stepped up to support those in need.
"So, our method is community-led. We have four amazing programs. One is food access, youth empowerment, early learning, and health and wellness. We have the community sit with us and tell us what they need first," Issak said. "When we do need assessments, it means asking the community, "What would you like us to do?"
The need assessments are a way for Living Well Kent to connect with the community to identify missing gaps while tailoring to cultural needs and identities. In a recent evaluation, the organization unveiled a pressing concern for Kent residents: food insecurity and a lack of availability of culturally relevant foods.
"The needs assessment showed number one was food insecurity and food insecurity in terms of not only food to eat but culturally appropriate foods that folks are familiar [with], that they ate from their country," Issak said. "People of color, Black people, Africans, food is something that nourishes your soul. It's not something that just fills your stomach. So, those soul-healing foods were not available. So we started farming, where we gave folks space to farm their own cultural foods, and then they ate that."
Another example of Living Well Kent's work is their early learning program, where they instill the importance of learning one's native language in schools.
"Our kids, because we chose, as immigrants, to teach our kids at home their own native language so we don't lose that culture and language. When they go to school, kindergarten, preschool, or first grade, the school system puts them in ELL classes," Issak said. "These kids are American-born, but we chose to teach them our language but because they speak another language, now they are behind. They are put in a box that they have some kind of disability just because [they] speak a different language. In this system, if you don't speak English, then you must be deficient, which is not deficient."
The organization, which is coming up on its 10th anniversary soon, donates culturally important food, diapers, and more every Thursday. To reach out to Living Well Kent and support, check out their website here and call their office at 253-277-3143.
For hear more community stories happening throughout King County, tune into Trae every weekday at 11 am on all Converge Media platforms and The Day With Trae YouTube Channel.
