Somali Great War project announced

The first Somali community in Britain settled here as a result of the Great War. We have been awarded a grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund that will allow us to explain how this happened.

Small Heath Somali Community Organisation (SMHESOCO) is a Registered Charity and Company Limited by Guarantee. We started work in 2010. Since then we have supported the Somali Community living in Birmingham by providing them with a range of services. These include free and impartial information, advice and guidance, translation, education in English as a Second Language, vocational training and help to find jobs. We also have a UK Online Centre at our premises. Over the next 12 months we will be researching the history of the Somali Community in Britain and in particular how this came to be shaped by the Great War. We have been awarded a grant of £10,000 by the Heritage Lottery Fund to allow us to carry out this research and to publicise the information that we find out.

During the Great War vital supplies for the Allied War effort travelled through the Suez Canal on the way to Europe from countries including Australia, New Zealand and India. The cargo ships carrying these supplies often called at the Ports of Berbera and Mogadishu in Somalia where local men would join their crews. When the ships arrived in British ports including Southampton, London, Newcastle and Liverpool some of the Somali crewmen left the ships to become Dock Workers and to take other jobs in the wartime economy. After the war was over several hundred stayed in Britain and over the following 10 years were joined by their wives and families. These relatively small communities grew and prospered in Britain. From the late 1990’s onwards significant numbers of people from Somaliland began to settle here either moving from other European Community Countries or being granted Refugee Status.

Mr Mahamoud Yusuf who is a Budget Adviser and Trainer at SMHESOCO said,

We should like our project to explain the long connection between Britain and Somalia that began as a result of the Great War. Several hundred Somali sailors were killed when their ships were attacked by German submarines who currently don’t have a memorial.

Also the importance of the Great War to the heritage of the Somali community living in Britain is not at all well known. As a result of this project we should like increase awareness of the community’s heritage and to honour those Somalis who died serving the Allied War effort between 1914 & 1918.

The project will conclude in the autumn of 2016 with an exhibition based on historical photographs and copies of records held in the National Archives and at the Royal Maritime Museum in Greenwich. We will also publish this on a new Internet Site and via a Facebook page.

Professor Ian Grosvenor, Director of Voices of War and Peace said,

We are pleased to be able to support this project. It’s very important that community history like this is celebrated as part of the national commemorations of the Great War.