"One day, when Saciido Shaie and her daughter were driving in downtown Minneapolis, three men in a truck drove by. There was an air-splitting blat as they honked the horn. Then came a yell that Shaie still remembers.

 

'Go back to your country. We don't need you here.'

 

They drove off, but to say nothing more came of that moment would be to discount every other moment when somebody made her feel like she didn't belong.

Shaie is originally from Somalia. There, her family had been rich. They had cars, businesses, a big house.

 

'All of that changed in a split second,' she says.

 

In 1990, civil war broke out. Suddenly, Somalia wasn't safe anymore. She became a refugee because her home was taken from her. Her country was taken from her. She came to America because they thought it was different than the rest of the world. America was a place where you could make something of yourself. They chose America because America was for people like her: people with potential."

Saciido Shaie is a graduate of the first cohort of the Parent Leadership for Child Safety and Permanency (PLCSP) Team