Bantu
find jobs, acceptance in adopted Vermont homes
By Candace Page
Free Press Staff Writer
WINOOSKI -- Ibrahim Aden, 30, smiles as he lines up two long fluorescent tubes
on his workbench, rips bubblewrap from a roll and carefully rolls it around the
indoor-gardening lights.
He will repeat the task dozens of times before his work shift ends in the
echoing Gardener's Supply warehouse above the Winooski River.
A job some people might find repetitive and boring represents a dream for Aden.
He is one of 34 Somali Bantu refugees who resettled in Chittenden County after a
life of hunger, maltreatment and discrimination.
Nearly 150 more Bantu are expected to arrive in Vermont this year.
Today, eight months after they landed, members of each of the first four
families have found work, despite a lack of language and training that led some
critics to warn they could become a financial burden on the community.
For most, employment has begun with assembly-line, near-minimum wage jobs, often
at the far end of a long bus ride.
Aden's job offers somewhat better pay and the chance to build his skills.
Refugee workers say his experience shows the benefit: An employer who offers a
refugee the chance at a better job gets a motivated, hardworking employee.
"Some employers go the extra step because they are good people, but they also
see these employees are worth it," said Stacie Blake, executive director of the
Vermont Refugee Resettlement Program.
As a group, the Somali Bantu face more challenges in seeking work than many
other refugees.
Most speak little or no English. In Somalia, they were an ill-treated minority,
denied schooling or work other than farming. Many cannot read and write in their
own language.
"There were lots of rejections" as the first group of five Bantu men sought
work, said Judy Scott of South Burlington, who has worked closely with the
families. She said some employers have an unjustified reluctance to hire
non-English speakers.
What they lack in language or specific work skills, the Bantu workers make up in
adaptability and determination to do a good job, Scott said.
'That work ethic'
Aden's product-assembly job in the mail-order warehouse of the gardening company
is the envy of his Bantu friends.
His pay is higher than theirs, $8.50 an hour. The work includes a greater
variety of tasks than most low-wage jobs. He will have the chance to move up to
more demanding, better-paying tasks. His fringe benefits include profit-sharing
and the opportunity for a stake in his employee-owned company.
He and others also said his job is highly desirable because of the welcome he
has received from the company and his co-workers.
Two co-workers searched the Internet for common Somali phrases, which they
posted on a wall. Others taught him to join the lunchtime Foosball game. His
immediate supervisor, Bruce Wilson, lives near him and gives Aden a ride to work
every day from the apartment he shares with his wife and four children.
Gardener's Supply is not Aden's first work experience.
At 13, he went to work in the fields of a rice-growing company in southern
Somalia. He worked from 5 in the morning to 7 at night for less than $1 a day.
"Children are not children there," he said through an interpreter.
At 18, Aden fled Somalia. Civil war had plunged the country into near anarchy.
One day, a group of bandits found Aden and his sister working in the bush, tied
him up and beat him badly.
Aden survived a starvation walk to Kenya. In a refugee camp there he worked
building huts and selling small items like sugar and gum from a table by the
road.
Managers at Gardener's Supply shake their heads when they are asked to describe
the difficulties of training and working with Aden. They cannot think of any,
they said, except perhaps arranging to translate documents about employment
benefits for him.
"He's highly motivated and learns fast. I've had him train other people," said
one of Aden's supervisors, Aaron Richards of Milton. "He's already made
suggestions for better ways to do some jobs."
"That work ethic -- you can't train for it," added Kit Howe, a human resources
manager.
No English needed
Abdullahi Liban, 39, also farmed in Somalia and he, too, was attacked by lawless
militiamen and fled to Kenya. He came to Vermont in August with his wife and
five children.
Earlier this month Liban found a job assembling capacitors at York Capacitor in
Winooski where two Bantu friends work. He is paid $7 an hour with no health
benefits.
The company's president, Mathias Dubilier, is frank about the limits of his
assembly-line jobs.
"This is a highly competitive global industry. We have always hired people at
the bottom of the wage scale," he said. "This is unskilled labor for which no
language skills are needed."
Some refugees work there briefly, until they have improved their English.
Others, Dubilier said, like the "comfortable, low-pressure work environment" and
stay for many years.
Liban said he is happy to have the work, though the pay is low for a man with
five children.
Unlike Aden, his job will remain static and he has little interaction with his
American co-workers. He also must leave the house at 6:30 a.m. to take two buses
to Winooski. He doesn't get home until nearly 12 hours later.
The hardest thing, he said, is that he cannot attend Friday noontime prayers at
his mosque. Without English, he has been unable to ask his supervisor whether
the Bantu men might be able to adjust their work schedule to go to prayers.
A proud moment
"I tell employers, 'Try these people and tell me if you like,'" said Nadia
Soussi, the refugee program's employment counselor. "They will. These people are
really great."
Scott, the program's volunteer coordinator, has gotten to know Aden well. She
said he was asked recently to name the proudest moment in his life. "Working at
Gardener's Supply," he answered.
"So, I think that's the difference having this job has made in his life," she
said.
Bruce Wilson, Aden's co-worker, includes himself among those who once worried
the Bantu refugees might be a burden on Vermont.
"Working with Ibrahim has changed my mind," he said.