The background: The Somali Bantu Community of Lewiston, Maine is a non-profit organization whose primary goal is to assist the Somali Bantu Community and the Lewiston refugee community at large on housing, employment, literacy and education, health, and safety matters. After four years in Lewiston members of the Somali Bantu Community have been successful in creating their own nonprofit organization supported by a Board of Directors made up of men and women from within their own community. Operating out of an annual budget of $30,000, they are confident in their ability to provide support for their community and have ambitious plans to grow their programs. They have rented office space that includes a meeting room that has helped the group build a sense of community. The Somali Bantus are ethnically and culturally different from the general Somali population, and there is a need for culturally relevant services specific to the needs of this community. The ethnic Somalis are Arabic in origin. The Somali Bantus are descended from African tribes. They came primarily from refugee camps in Kenya where they had lived for as long as 20 years, having been driven from Somalia during the civil war. Many bring terrible physical and emotional scars resulting from both the civil war and long-term racial and ethnic discrimination. Bantu refugees were slaves in Somalia and they have a long history of marginalization. These circumstances of violence and suppression have damaged their sense of equality and self-esteem. The recent civil war further reinforced their sense of insecurity. Those in the Lewiston community describe friends and relatives being killed in attacks in Somalia. Conditions that Bantu women had to endure in Africa, such as rape, a lack of education, second-class status in Somali society, high birth rates, single parent status, and trauma from past experiences are all carried with them to Lewiston. The prevalence of violence in the refugee camps further eroded the Bantu’s sense of security and well-being. The Bantu's intergenerational culture of inferiority and second-class status affect their ability to embrace the future with confidence. Most of the adults do not speak English. And a good many of them, particularly the women, are illiterate in their own language. Local literacy programs have begun to work with them, but more tutors and translators are needed for the large community to substantially increase their English literacy. Adult education programs, though widely available, assume more than a basic literacy level. Historically they have been farmers. In Somalia the neighborhoods were rural and subsistence farming was the norm. In Kenya they maintained their interest in agriculture. Although some of the men have gained related work skills, they do not come from a tradition of highly skilled workers. Women traditionally were responsible for the family and the household. While this is changing, the women also need considerable education and training to prepare them for the workplace. While many of them are working, they tend to be employed in low-wage dead-end jobs such as dishwashing, housekeeping, food bank, fast food and babysitters. A major factor for this is the failure to understand spoken or written instructions. The Bantu have a reputation as very hard workers during their years in the Africa, but they lack the understanding of the English language and business practices to easily assimilate into the American workplace. The need: In Somalia, prescription medications were rare commodities, and, because of this, storage and disposal of the drugs were not the safety issues that they are in the US. There have been three families whose children required hospitalization has a result of accidental ingestion of drugs prescribed to the parents, and in one instance, the Department of Health and Human Services attempted to remove the children from the home because of the accident. Because of the very high rates of illiteracy (in both English and Bantu languages), community members are unable to read the labels on their medications, and are often unaware of expiration dates and unable to verify dosage instructions. There is a need for field workers to make home visits in the community, to raise awareness about the potential dangers of these medications, to check the expiration dates and make sure the client’s understanding of the dosage is consistent with the labeling. There has already been one death in the community from a poor translation by a non-Bantu interpreter of the dosage and intervals of a prescription. There is also a need to check the homes for peeling or cracking paint and to encourage clients in homes with potential lead poisoning to go to the hospital to be tested for lead poisoning.