The African Migration and Development Program (formally known as the Somali Bantu Project)

Director:

Omar A. Eno

Contact Information:

enoo@pdx.edu

Deputy Director:

Daniel Van Lehman

Contact Information:

503-725-8587

dvanlehm@pdx.edu

Communications & Public Relations Coordinator:

Jamal M. Haji

Contact Information:

jamalh@pdx.edu

Web site: www.bantusupport.pdx.edu

The African Migration and Development Program (AMDP) is an outgrowth of the National Somali Bantu Project (NSBP) that began operating in the Hatfield School of Government in 2003.  The NSBP (www.somalibantu.org) was primarily focused on the resettlement of Somali Bantu refugees throughout the United States. The scope of the NSBP initially provided American government and non-governmental agencies with cultural and historic orientations on Somalia in general and the Somali Bantu in particular. As the Somali Bantu arrived in the United States, the NSBP’s scope evolved to mobilizing and organizing recently-arrived Somali Bantu communities into functioning self help organizations. The goal was to enable the 15,000 Somali Bantu community members to more successfully integrate into American society. In the course of this work, Somali Bantu refugee organizations in Yemen, Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania contacted the NSBP on immigration and resettlement issues.
 
The AMDP has again evolved from only working with refugees in the United States to also addressing the root causes of the fighting in southern Somalia, which is the home region of the Somali Bantu and other marginalized minority groups that are being persecuted by Al Shabaab. The scope of the AMDP includes research, analysis and reporting on the factors contributing to the civil and human rights abuses against the native inhabitants in southern Somalia. The AMDP also explores political strategies that achieve a just and sustainable peace in this region. AMDP staff members have collaborated and consulted on Somalia with government and non-governmental agencies from the United States, Europe and Africa whose security, immigration, and civil society interests are threatened by the instability in Somalia.
 
The following websites list links to books and reports on Somalia’s history, cultures and instability:

• http://www.bantusupport.pdx.edu/academic_news/somali_index.php
• http://www.bantusupport.pdx.edu/academic_news/index.php

 
The AMDP recently collaborated on or authored the following reports:

• Minority Rights Group International
  No Redress: Somalia’s Forgotten Minorities
  by Martin Hill

• Journal of the Anglo-Somali Society
  Defining the Problem in Somalia: Perspectives from the Southern Minorities
  by Omar A. Eno, Mohamed A. Eno and Daniel J. Van Lehman