Mohamed Mohamud seethed as educators told him his son was failing his classes in 2007. He questioned why he hadn’t been alerted until April. He threatened a lawsuit.
But the brunt of Mohamud’s anger — all the more bitter because he worked as a teacher — he directed at himself.
“You have failed your kid,” he told himself. “You are educated; you can afford a tutor. Who will help a single mother of six who doesn’t speak English?”
That day, Mohamud conceived a nonprofit that would answer that question. He has since grown his Somali American Parent Association (SAPA) into one of the largest East African nonprofits in the state. Today, in his pinstriped suit and tie, he paints a painfully personal contrast for his staff on the power of hands-on parenting: the illiterate single mother who saw all six of her kids go to college, and Mohamud himself, with his master’s degree, who watched his two sons flailing in his new homeland.
The past two years have been pivotal: Riding new interest in Somali community investments by philanthropists and public officials, SAPA almost tripled its budget. Meanwhile, Mohamud drew criticism after stepping to the forefront of a federal pilot project to prevent radical recruitment.