New trustee to support TTI's clinical and strategic growth

Trauma Treatment International holds at its core the values of respect, diversity and compassion. To be able to uphold these values actively and in a way that is both deeply genuine and highly reflective, it is vital that the organisation is run by people with lived experience of the issues it seeks to address.

Our newly appointed trustee Abdulkadir Mohamed has committed his career to supporting the mental health of the most vulnerable, both in the UK and in his homeland of Somalia.

Abdulkadir had just finished secondary school when Somalia’s long-standing dictator President Said Barre was overthrown, leading to clashes between tribes and their respective militias.

Abdulkadir, now 50, remembers: “I was living in the capital Mogadishu at that time. Different factions came to the city and neighbours of many years began turning on each other. My father worked for the government as part of the ruling party, so we had to flee without looking back. All I had was my ID, the clothes I was wearing and a watch.

“We went to the south of Somalia to live with one of my older sisters, but within a month the militias came down there and started indiscriminately shooting people. I got shot by a stray bullet in my right ankle when we were trying to flee from the city.

“My uncle drove me and another injured man to the bush, where we ended up staying for six days before he could get us help. This was in drought season in an area of nomads and camels, with no food, or treatment for my ankle.

“Eventually, my uncle came back with some other men to rescue us. These men were from a different tribe but, because they knew my uncle from before the war, they agreed to help us. When they got there, I didn’t know if they were going to hurt us – I just froze and started talking nonsense.”

Thankfully, Abdulkadir’s rescuers were true to their word and took him to the coastal city of Kismayo in the south of Somalia, where his family was unknown. There, alongside his parents and younger siblings, he began to make a new life for himself.

“I got a job as a storekeeper,” he says. “But one day, I was standing outside the store when I was shot again with another stray bullet, in the rib.

“At that point, my dad told me my life would end if I didn’t leave Somalia. So I decided to travel to Kenya on a dhow boat with my sister-in-law; we wanted to join my older siblings who had already fled the country.

“The boat was made for 50 people but there were 200 of us on there in very rough seas, all on top of each other. It should have taken two days but it took five in the end because of the high winds. By that time, we had run out of food and water.”

Sanctuary in Kenya

Thankfully for Abdulkadir and the other passengers, the United Nations Refugee Agency was in the Kenyan city of Marafa, near Lamu, to offer food and shelter to the new arrivals. “We spent two or three weeks in makeshift tents,” he says.

“After that, I lived on the coast near Mombasa for a few years. But ultimately Kenya wasn’t safe for illegal immigrants either, and we were being targeted on the streets by the police. So we went wherever we could. I paid an agent to get me to Sweden to join some of my siblings, but it wasn’t always possible to reach the country you wanted. So I ended up at Heathrow Airport.”

He adds: “I arrived in the UK at the end of December. I didn’t realise that fireworks would be let off on New Year’s Eve, and when they started, I panicked and could feel electric shocks in my ankle. But thankfully, despite everything that had happened, I never developed full-blown PTSD.”

New challenges

While Abdulkadir was now physically safe in London, his new status as an asylum seeker came with its own problems. “People assume that refugees come to the UK to claim benefits and all those things,” he says. “But people who come here for safety, want to get a job and contribute to society straight away. I remember being in the queue for benefits and feeling really ashamed. Thankfully, I was able to work after six months, and was given leave to remain after a year. This was in the late 1990s - compared to the system now, it was very fast.”

Abdulkadir, who underwent an urgent operation on his ankle soon after arriving in London, took a job as a hospital porter on a mental health ward at the Central Middlesex Hospital. There, it became clear that he had a talent for working with people suffering from mental health problems.

He explained: “One night, I was watching two patients arguing with each other through a window. I saw one of them take a knife from a food tray and walk away with it. Without thinking, I approached him and told him that if he stabbed the other man he would end up in jail for a very long time. He listened to me and gave me the knife back.

“This wasn’t my job; my responsibility was to clear away after meals. But I just acted on instinct. My colleague thanked me for what I’d done and asked me if I’d like to become a health care assistant. She saw my potential before I believed in myself.”

An impressive career trajectory

Abdulkadir has since been supported by the Central and North West London (CNWL) NHS Foundation Trust to undertake a foundation degree and later a registered nurse degree apprenticeship. It hasn’t been easy, having been diagnosed with dyslexia, then losing his father and undergoing open heart surgery in the same year.

But his strength and determination helped him to complete his studies and qualify as a mental health nurse. Indeed, so impressive are his achievements that he was highly commended in the Inspirational Adult Learner of the Year category of the Mayor of London Adult Learning Awards 2023.

Now, Abdulkadir works as a mental health nurse at South Westminster Hub for CNWL, and regularly travels back to Somalia to give lectures to student nurses and healthcare workers about mental health. “For every three houses in Somalia, there is one family member suffering from bad mental health,” he explains. “The well-off people hide these family members away and lock them in the back room, but the poor people will be on the streets. So it’s important for awareness to be raised around this issue.”

Joining our team

The father of three is excited to join Trauma Treatment International’s board of trustees, using the skills he has gained as a mental health practitioner both in the UK and Somalia, and his own lived experience of trauma to strengthen it’s services for victims of collective violence.

He explains that he met TTI co-founder Dr Brock Chisholm while working in a PTSD clinic in 2011. “At that time, my patients were forced migrants; I helped them with social and practical behavioural changes,” he says. “This included preparing them for therapy, helping them find accommodation, enrolling in education.

“The best part was when I saw them recovering. One patient I worked with as an inpatient had been suffering psychotic symptoms and had cut off his own finger; he was really struggling. Since then, he has recovered to the point where he has become an IT professor. I’m so proud of him.”

He adds: “I was impressed to hear how Brock and his colleagues were travelling internationally to help organisations which support traumatised people. Their impact is huge.

“I’ve never been a trustee before and I’m looking forward to learning from the team. I also want to help TTI in any way I can, whether that’s through advocacy or fundraising.

“TTI’s work is so important, because it is possible to heal from trauma when it is treated with evidence-based approaches, and allows the person to process what they have experienced.”