"We started NUBIA while I was driving a taxi, in 2005. We started first with a youth program. When we came here, my kids, no one spoke English, but very quickly, they catch on to English and forget our native language. So I said, ok, we will start an organization, and this will be the first goal, to do a program for them.

 

"We needed a space, but I had a small budget. At that time, we had only my kids and my friends kids, like, 7, 8 kids. My daughter asked me, why we don't check in Charlestown? She said, 'let's go and see.' I met someone working for the Kennedy Center, and when I explained to him, he said, what do you think about this hall? I said, 'this will be very good, good enough.' Very quickly, I think in two weeks or three weeks, the number went to 30 kids. There was no way to continue there, so we had to find another space. We went to Charlestown Community Center. They gave us two classes. We said 'ok, that is good.' But we found the number was still going up, so the two classes was not enough. We went to another community center, they gave us one level, 3 classes. So we got the kids, we got the families coming everyday.

 

"At that time, the Charlestown community garden was all Chinese and Asian ladies, and one sick white man originally from Germany. Every day he was telling me, 'oh, the doctors told me I'm going to die in one week.' This continued 3 or 4 years. Every time he needs help, I go and help him in the garden, because he's sick. One day he told me, 'Sayed, you are doing good, why don't you come and have a space here?' I said, 'this would be good, but there is no empty space.' 

 

"One of my friends connected me with a gardening for refugees organization in Mattapan.They had $800,000 for 3 years. So that was the beginning of starting gardening programs. We got permission to build as much as we want from the empty spaces in Charlestown. 

 

"I went to Home Depot, and we got the cheapest wood. I didn't know that some wood is not good for raised beds. I got enough wood for 6 beds. I started to ask families to come garden in the beds. I got 3 families, but I still had 2 beds without gardeners. So I thought, why don't we leave two open for the kids, and the produce can go to the families? After we started growing food, a lady came to me and said, 'do you know, Sayed, this wood is not good for the soil?' I said, 'why, what's the problem?' She said, 'it's going to poison the soil within five years.' I said, 'ok, 5 years, we have time!

 

"We had funds to build 30 more beds. There were 8 families from Somalia, and 17 beds for gardeners from my community, and 5 for the Charlestown community."