Our Theory of Change

Elmahaba Center aims to build such a community, especially among Arabic-speaking people in South Nashville. We respond in a culturally inclusive way to the serious challenges that our community members are facing.

The Problem

Cultural Invisibility

While Arabic is the third most spoken language in Nashville, Arabic-speaking immigrants and refugees are one of the least served populations in Nashville. Few non-profits or institutions translate material into accessible and understandable Arabic, hire Arabic-speaking staff, and respect cultural nuances in providing care. To make matters worse, Immigrants experience discrimination (including in housing and in the workplace), abusive language (such as being called “terrorists”) and ignorance of their culture (especially ignorance of the diversity of Arabic-speaking communities).

Communal Isolation

Many of our Arabic-speaking community members are isolated from basic resources and services. Isolation from resources breeds other traumas like over-policing instead of school funding, the majority only having high school diplomas (even among second generation), pandemic outbreak instead of safety measures in place to protect essential workers, a lack of a living wage, a lack of public transportation and therefore a lack of employment choices and liberty, etc. Moreover, media outlets not centering South Nashvillian voices continue to paint a racist picture of who we are—as violent, as dangerous, as non-assimilated.

Lack of Community-Responsive Care

While many institutions, organizations, and individuals can identify issues in South Nashville, like the need for more clinics, counselors, or affordable housing, issues go unsolved when care is provided from the top-down as a means of charity instead of mutual aid and is provided without cultural nuance. Few programs meet South Nashvillians where they are at and instead enforce markers of communication, interaction, and engagement, like lengthy applications in English, informational sessions without cultural respect or knowledge, etc.

Our Approach

Culture is Community is Care is Culture is Community is Care

At Elmahaba Center, our core tenets—culture, community, and care—encompass one another. We believe that respecting cultures—whether from Northern Egypt, Southern Egypt, the US Southern culture, “American” culture, Muslim or Christian, Yemeni or Iraqi, city or rural—builds communities. Communities, in turn, are units of care, stimulating the better parts of ourselves to enrich our cultures and leave something beautiful behind for generations in South Nashville.

To build a community of care, we address three main layers of serious harm.

Fighting Generational Economic Immobility

Our Youth Programming addresses the fact that South Nashville families are often faced with the impossible choice of taking on mountains of debt to send their child to college or limiting their child’s future career prospects by keeping them home. College preparation allows young South Nashvillians to break that cycle by becoming eligible for scholarships, being prepared for the academic and emotional realities of college, and gaining important life skills for being an adult.

From Isolation to Inclusion

We break segregation and isolation through our Mutual Aid Services, delivering furniture, clothes, food, and supplies with a priority on newcomers. We welcome non-Arabic-speaking community members to our Thursday Livestreams to introduce new services. Weekly, we receive dozens of messages on our social media pages, and we navigate community members to resources needed.

Celebrating Our Culture

We fight against racial discrimination and harassment by addressing heavy topics while celebrating our cultures on our Instagram, podcast, and certain Thursday Livestreams like our Nashville Community Concert. We participate in cultural shows and are planning our own for Antioch during the Nilotic New Year (in September during the flooding of the Nile). We write articles about the uniqueness of ourselves and hold space to appreciate who we are, though others may not see it. We create maps of what we have made and are leaving in Nashville—restaurants, stores, salons. Our Oral History project illuminates our histories and stories and prioritizes our voices in our history. We’re not interested in defending ourselves and seeking approval; we’re interested in celebrating ourselves.

Through these resources and services, Elmahaba Center’s approach seeks justice for our immigrants and refugees who have built Nashville for decades to be a hub of migration for others, while being excluded themselves. Our approach seeks liberation for our peoples who have internalized the boxes others have placed them in, and our approach prioritizes the community as liberation

Books to Engage on These Topics of Racism, Culture, Living in the US, and SWANA (Southwest Asian/North African) Heritage:

How Does It Feel To Be A Problem?": Being Young and Arab in America by Moustafa Baymoui

The Karma of Brown Folk by Vijay Prashad

The Arab Americans: A History by Gregory Orfalea

No Name on the Street by James Baldwin