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SALT LAKE CITY — Driving the bumpy dirt road through the open grasslands west of the Salt Lake International Airport reminds Ismael Mohammed of his African homeland.
“The only difference is the mountain,” he says pointing to the Oquirrh Mountains. “We don’t have this kind of big mountains over there.”
No doubt, it sounds a little like home, as well. Mohammed parks his car and, with his 6-year-old son, Musa, approaches a metal gate. A chorus of bleats rises from a small ranch. About 200 goats live there.
This is the East African Refugee Goat Project of Utah, a microenterprise run by local Somali Bantu, Burundi and Somajo Bajuni refugees.
Mohammed is tired. It is Ramadan, and he has been up all night praying and is now fasting. Still, he and his son spend their morning under the hot sun feeding and watering the herd.
Mohammed grew up in Somalia and then at a refugee camp in Kenya. He wasn’t able to go to school.
He wanted more for his son and wanted to help him dodge the perils of life in the states.
“I saw a lot of other communities dropping (out of) schools, joining, you know, gangs,” he says. “I just sat down, myself, tried to mobilize my community and come together with ideas.”
The head of Utah Refugee Services approached East African refugees with a proposal to raise goats. It was something the transplanted Africans knew something about.
“I remember when I was little waking up in the morning taking the water to the pen,” says Alex Ngendakuriyo, a leader from the Burundi refugee community. Goats, he says, were a big part of the economy back home.
“When I look at African culture, having a goat in your home, that shows that you have the capacity to protect your family financially.”
Now the refugees are growing a herd to produce meat and eventually a source of income for scholarships for youths and women.
“Most of the refugees that came here, they came here because of the war,” Ngendakuriyo says. “They have never had a chance to go to school. It is important for us because the future generation will be more educated and will be able to do productive things that will serve our community.”
The project is supported by a public-private partnership, which includes Rio Tinto Kennecott, the George S. and Delores Dore Eccles Foundation, the Community Foundation, Utah State University Extension Services, Utah Refugee Services and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Sevier Valley Goat Ranch donated a buck this past year. The International Rescue Committee serves as the umbrella agency.
Musa has grand plans. He says he wants to be a doctor, a truck driver and a zookeeper.
His father hopes only that Musa becomes a leader. Taking care of the goats, Ismael Mohammed says, can help his son become that.
“Religious books, the Bible and the Quran, they talk about people taking care of animals,” he says. “I have one that says if you cannot take care of animal you cannot take care of people.”
So Ismael and Musa Mohammed spread feed and hay, fetch goats that have strayed outside the ranch and count heads.
Dozens of kids were born this past spring, but the project is still shy of the 300 goats it needs to start generating scholarships. Ismael Mohammed is optimistic.
“I see the future here,” Mohammed says. “I'm always using this word. … If you look at where we started and where we are now, we are progress, we are progressing now.”
