Mohamud Gure arrived from Somalia in 2001. He works an educational coordinator helping to provide supplementary classes for young people. He volunteers as a school governor at his children's school.
Q: Do your children bring home books from school to read to you, do they have homework at the moment?
Yes, they have homework. They bring books I demand them I spoke with the teacher to give them books to read. I also take them to the library they get books to read and I also buy them books. I also-. I buy them--. They like to read Harry Potter books and I do buy them and they read. They love to read.
I have to teach them to read because, in Somalia most of the people are, we are an oral society; our language was written only in 1972.
Before that, people wrote in Arabic but our history is more or less all oral, I mean oral and now I want to change that kind of culture, and teach my children to learn the reading culture and writing culture.
And from time to time I ask them also to go to the computer and write a story. Write a story about anything you like and bring it back. And they really--. Ok, my oldest daughter and also my son they can read well, fast and write all sorts of stories. They are only here two years. It's just amazing. Because it is I guess my persistence, every day when they come from school I ask them to read one and a half hours, after they have eat their dinner, before they go to bed they read one and half hours. If they have maths problems I help them with them. Maybe that's now you know, helping them a lot.
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