Meet Mohammed Beshir Kabore
Vice President of Yankasa Association of New York, Community Liaison at Welcome2America, Mott Haven Fridge Network Food Distributor
Briggs Luisa Negrón
Meet Mohammed Beshir Kabore, a driven community leader and organizer as well as a Mott Haven Fridge Network distributor. Speaking on his inspiration for community service work, Mohammed cited his faith as a core motivator. “I’m a Muslim. Islam teaches to help one another. Our prophets most of the time is preaching don't try to be selfish. So, it’s part of that saying of the prophet that motivated me [to help and do the work I do, even though] I work 40 hours a week.”
The current vice president of non-profit Yankasa Association of New York, a community-based organization dedicated to providing a variety of resources to Muslim immigrants from Ghana and West Africa in the Bronx, Mohammed oversees operations ranging from social groups, to food distribution, education, and recurring religious services.
Yankasa Organization was founded in 1984 in response to the confusion, fear, and lack of knowledge about immigration status and laws, as well as a confusion regarding the civil rights afforded to every individual. Yankasa was created with the “aim [of helping] each other doing services like immigration, social, EVERYTHING.” The organization functions exactly as the name suggests; it is a powerful pillar of community, a place where people can go for any kind of resource they might need. Open everyday, the organization has multiple rooms for different purposes, one of which is a mosque where members of this community can safely and comfortably pray about five times a day. This mosque also houses many religious speakers, and every Friday they host a Muslim priest, so “a lot of people are coming here every Friday,” Mohammed said, noting that they had more than “1,000 members” that they served.
Yankasa provides a variety of services, for example, when a community member passes away or falls sick, the organization and community members contribute to the burial. Mohammed’s role in this process is, as the authority, to see that every contribution is distributed to the right places. If any member of the community were to fall sick, “it is not all on their shoulders,” Mohammed explained, “the community comes in and we see to it!” Yankasa also has a council of elders and Islamic teachers who provide marriage counseling and many other social services. Furthermore, Yankasa hosts many events, like the Islamic Naming Ceremonies, a “social gathering to bless the kid, pray islamically” and generally celebrate the child and his or her families.
“I’m working here, always I’m trying to help community,” said Mohammed. “People are coming with their rental program, insurance, [and] because we are executives everybody know what they’re doing!” Every leader of this organization has their specific responsibilities from the president and the vice president, to the general secretary, organizing secretary, and more, and each one helps members of the community “to know their civil rights.”
There was also a strong focus on the youth in the organization. On the weekend, they have an Islamic school “because the kids are going to formal education during the weeks,” so they use the weekends as a way to “teach them about [their] religion and [their] culture.” Speaking on the role and future of the youth, Mohammed said that “most of the time, our community, the kids, the youth are left out. So we are trying to bring them in! We are going to sponsor them to make them feel they are a part, and whatever they want we are going to help them do,” through a mentorship program launching on February 19, 2022. This mentorship program will allow kids to “come in to have a chat, whatever, do their homework, EVERYTHING,” functioning as another safe space and multifunctional resource center. Yankasa’s wide range of services and resources is a testament to the strength of their goals and motives, a testament to the strength of community organization and passionate driven leaders like Mohammed Beshir Kabore making real change and improvements in their communities and the world.
Apart from his work with Yankasa, Mohammed founded Welcome to America in 2008 with co-founder Bokula Shonuga, an organization dedicated to educating and empowering a larger African community in New York, and currently works as a community liaison with the organization. With his non-profit, Mohammed and Bokula Shonuga received a federal grant for the purpose of doing outreach and “to let our people, our community know the need for them to be registered, regardless of [their] immigration status, [because] if you don't know the number [for the census] how can community leaders manage their community?” A core issue with registration for immigrants, Mohammed noted, was the fear and lack of knowledge of civil rights related to peoples immigration status. “Most of them are afraid, like ‘oh if they come out they need the information!’ We enlighten them, we let them know- NO! Because no matter how you are, in New York city you go to hospital [and] you go to school.”
So where does food security work and distribution fit into this larger narrative of representation, education, civil rights, and non-profit community-based work? “When corona came in, everything was shut down” Mohammed explained, which shifted some of the nature of his work. He began collaborating with and working with World Central Kitchen, providing “about 500 plates a day to various communities,” stating that all of the community was “coming HERE to pick their food.”
One can see the grand and widespread scale of Mohammed’s work in the community, the extensive care that he has put into his two non-profit organizations, as well as a 40-hour work week as a security guard. While working at both these organizations and a full-time job, Mohammed was referred to Mott Haven Fridge Network through his co-founder Bokula Shonuga. The food that Mott Haven Fridge Network brings to Mohammed and these non-profits, “is not only for our community. EVERYBODY Christian, Muslim, is benefiting from it,” says Mohammed. And he himself is on the front lines of distributing said produce to as many people as possible.
Meet Mohammed Beshir Kabore.
