Photo Credit: Sam Hodgson
By Adrian Florido
Published February 17, 2011 on
When Hamun Yussuf was a girl, a vicious civil war broke out in Somalia, her home. Many of the men in her tribe left to fight. A lot never returned.
Yussuf’s family fled to Kenya, where her mother worked at a shop while Yussuf, the oldest daughter, stayed home to care for her three siblings.
In 2007, the family moved to Minnesota as refugees, and a year later Yussuf came to San Diego, lured by the weather and the hope of finding work in City Heights’ large Somali community.
But she had never worked before, and she spoke little English. So to make a living she babysat the five children of a Somali neighbor while the woman worked and attended school. It was all Yussuf had ever done when her family lived in Nairobi, and it helped her survive, just barely. She could hardly pay her $722 monthly rent.
But last year, with the help of a local nonprofit, Yussuf got a state license to be a child daycare provider. The license allows her to care for eight children in her own home. It’s bumped her earnings from $26,400 a year to almost $38,000.