![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/files\/2021\/09\/HamzaPhoto.webp\")
<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\nPrior to working at the Harward Center, Abdi was an Academic Administrative Assistant at Bates in Roger Williams Hall for three years. His main job there was to support language departments–a good fit for someone who is fluent in English, French, Somali, and Arabic. Some of his responsibilities included managing and overseeing department budgets and assisting with faculty candidate recruitment. While that job was primarily “faculty facing,\u201d his new job is student oriented, with a volunteer-based focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI enjoy working with students who want to engage with the community outside of the formal academic curriculum,\u201d Abdi said. \u201cUsually, students either just want to volunteer in the community or they want to become involved in different ways. My job is to manage volunteer programs, coordinate the Community Work Study program, support our student leadership programs, and strengthen community partnerships.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abdi’s goals include making community engagement work at Bates something every student knows about and has easy access to. He also hopes to make them curious about life outside of the Bates “bubble.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Abdi\u2019s passion for community engagement was sparked several years ago when he had the opportunity to work with several Bates students and engage with Harward Center staff. Although he didn\u2019t take community-engaged classes while in college, he came to appreciate their value when he worked in downtown Lewiston as the Skills Development and Language Services Manager for the Immigrant Resource Center of Maine (IRCM), where he developed skills development and ESL programs and managed language services for the organization. In that capacity, he wound up interacting with Bates faculty member Danny Danforth, as well as several Bates students who volunteered at the Center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how I came to learn about community engagement. I had many Bates students who were volunteering with my programs.\u201d In 2018, the Harward Center recognized Abdi with the Community Partner Award for Outstanding New Initiative for his work with Bates student Julia Nemy. Those positive interactions motivated him to apply for the Academic Administrative Assistant position at the college, which he enjoyed for several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Understandably, one of Abdi’s favorite parts of his new Bates job is working with the Harward Center team. \u201cThe Harward Center is really a very supportive team, so the work environment is extremely, extremely great,\u201d Abdi said. \u201cI knew them before, but now we\u2019re working together in the same office. I mean, when you have a very supportive team, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything you need to worry about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The support of the team and his excitement about working with students have reaffirmed his belief that he\u2019s made a great choice. \u201cOf course, I wish things were a little different than they are now with all the COVID restrictions,\u201d Abdi admitted, \u201cbut I\u2019m definitely looking forward to everything that my new job entails.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When Hamza Abdi accepted the position as the Harward Center’s new Assistant…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-monthly","with-sidebar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7393"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10304,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7393\/revisions\/10304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/harward\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}