50 Stories for 50 Years: Abdisamad Aadan ‘14

To celebrate our 50th anniversary year during 2018/19, we collected stories and profiles of people and institutions that have helped us build our organization, which first began as one person's dream in 1968. We will feature one story per week on our blog. Please enjoy these “50 for 50” profiles featuring ASSIST's dedicated board members, dynamic staff, welcoming host families and enthusiastic ASSIST Scholars.

Abdisamad Aadan ‘14
Somalia, Masters School

To a four-year-old kid in a refugee camp in a desert, nothing is more important than playing in the sand with his friends. I was just that kid, until my aunt had told me about our eminent relocation to Hargeisa. “Things have become normal in Hargeisa Hadhwanaag (the city with the great shade), and we can now go home and lead a normal life,” she told me. While “normal” did not have much of a meaning in my vocabulary at the time, my instinct knew that my life at the camp was far from normal, and I was elated by the possibility of moving to Hargeisa and enjoying the great shades of its trees.

While Hargeisa was nothing like what I had imagined, the life in Hargeisa was superior to my life at the camp. Unlike our dusty hut at the camp, our new house was made of solid, reliable concrete walls and its floor was cemented. That was a radical improvement. Life was not the same for everyone who returned, though much of the city had been destroyed during merciless drone strikes in 1988 conducted by the regime of Siyad Barre. The civil wars that followed devastated what was left.

While everything seemed an improvement to me, the adults in my family were unambiguously shocked by the apocalypse they were witnessing. My uncle was the most severely damaged. He could not adapt to the new realities of post-war Somaliland. He would always lament about how the war has robbed all kinds of opportunities off the Somali people. He would point out the inevitable gloomy days ahead- “Who is going to educate the youth, who is going to cure the sick, and who is going to fill up official posts?” In hindsight, his words were prophetic, and he was the first real teacher in my life. While his tutelage was not a perfect substitute for the formal education that I would get in more peaceful parts of the world, it provided me with unique lenses to interpret the world and gave me an understanding of what role I should be aspiring to play. I wanted to be a leader for a better tomorrow.

At the camp, when I imagined Hargeisa, I pictured a spacious community with a myriad of shade trees. Little did I know that 14 years down the road, I would be taking short train rides to Central Park- which captured what I had imagined as a 4 year old- while attending The Masters School- all thanks to ASSIST. This discovery, however, was the lesser transformation during my ASSIST Year.

The more consequential transformation altered my understanding of what it means to be a leader. All the material I received at the ASSIST Orientation in Pomfret read our slogan, “Today’s Scholars, Tomorrow’s Leaders.” This was very confusing to me. How can an organization that runs a one year exchange program proclaim to be grooming future leaders? I wondered. However, as my first official act as an ASSIST Scholar, I embarrassed myself line dancing with few of my friends, some of whom were actual dancers—some of you have definitely seen the video. And then, something dawned on me: this is what it means to be a leader.

To be a leader is to have the humility to not let the fear of not knowing or not being good at something inhibit you from trying and force you to take the inferior choice of other-izing. It is about having the courage to let your guard down and admit that you may have a lot to learn from the ostensible “Other.”

When you don't understand and lack the humility to fail, learn, and improve quickly: you burn, you bomb, you ban, and you deny facts.

Todays world is in dire need of ASSIST leadership, a leadership that is built on understanding and openness. This organization must be cherished. As George Orwell famously wrote, “Perhaps one does not want to be loved so much as to be understood.”

About Abdisamad:
Abdisamad Adan '14 is the first ASSIST scholar from Somaliland. He is now in his last year at Harvard University studying Economics. "My ASSIST experience has shaped my life in countless ways and unlocked countless opportunities that were unimaginable to my pre-ASSIST self. I will forever be grateful to ASSIST."