 | |
| Abbreviation | CSC |
|---|---|
| Type | community organization |
| Purpose | social, educational and peer work |
| Headquarters | Toronto, Ontario |
Region served | Canada |
Official language | Somali, English, French |
| Website | www |
The Canadian Somali Congress (CSC) is a Somali community organization based in Toronto, Ontario. [1]
Lawyer Ahmed Hussen serves as the CSC's national President. [2] [3]
The body works closely with national and regional authorities to strengthen civic relations. [1] Among other initiatives, the Canadian Somali Congress has formed a partnership with the Canadian International Peace Project and Canadian Jewish Congress to establish the Canadian Somali-Jewish Mentorship Project, the first national mentoring and development project between a sizable Muslim community and the Jewish community. [2] [4]
Somalia, officially the Federal Republic of Somalia, is the easternmost country in continental Africa. The country is located in the Horn of Africa and is bordered by Ethiopia to the west, Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden to the north, and the Indian Ocean to the east. Somalia has the longest coastline on Africa's mainland. Somalia has an estimated population of 18.1 million, of which over 2 million live in the capital and largest city, Mogadishu. Around 85% of its residents are ethnic Somalis and the official languages of the country are Somali and Arabic, though the former is the primary language. Somalia has historic and religious ties to the Arab world. As such the people in Somalia are Muslims, the majority of them Sunni.
Mogadishu, locally known as Xamar or Hamar, is the capital and most populous city of Somalia. The city has served as an important port connecting traders across the Indian Ocean for millennia and has an estimated urban population of 2,610,483.
Borys Wrzesnewskyj is a Canadian politician who represented the riding of Etobicoke Centre in the House of Commons of Canada. He held the riding from 2004 to 2011 and again from 2015 to 2019. He is a member of the Liberal Party.
Frank Iacobucci is a former Puisne Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada from 1991 until his retirement from the bench in 2004. He was the first Italian-Canadian, allophone judge on the court. Iacobucci was also the first judge on the Supreme Court to have been born, raised and educated in British Columbia. Iacobucci has had a distinguished career in private practice, academia, the civil service and the judiciary.
American Jews or Jewish Americans are American citizens who are Jewish, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion. According to a 2020 poll conducted by Pew Research, approximately two thirds of American Jews identify as Ashkenazi, 3% identify as Sephardic, and 1% identify as Mizrahi. An additional 6% identify as some combination of the three categories.
Canadian Jews, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion, form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States and France. As of 2021, Statistics Canada listed 335,295 Jews in Canada. This total would account for approximately 1.4% of the Canadian population.
The Canadian Jewish News is a non-profit, national, English-language digital-first media organization that serves Canada's Jewish community. A national edition of the newspaper was published for 60 years in Toronto. A weekly Montreal edition in English with some French began its run in 1976. The newspaper announced its closure in 2013 but was able to continue after restructuring and reorganizing. It again announced its closure on April 2, 2020, due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in Canada on its finances. Its final weekly print edition was published on April 9, 2020. In December 2020, it announced its return as a digital-first media company with a new president, Bryan Borzykowski.
The Somali Civil War is an ongoing civil war that is taking place in Somalia. It grew out of resistance to the military junta which was led by Siad Barre during the 1980s. From 1988 to 1990, the Somali Armed Forces began engaging in combat against various armed rebel groups, including the Somali Salvation Democratic Front in the northeast, the Somali National Movement in the northwest, and the United Somali Congress in the south. The clan-based armed opposition groups overthrew the Barre government in 1991.
The Canadian Arab Federation (CAF) was formed in 1967 to represent the interests of Arab Canadians with respect to the formulation of public policy in Canada. It presently consists of over 40 member organizations.
Bernie M. Farber is a Canadian writer, commentator, and the former chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress and a social activist. He has testified before the Canadian courts as an expert witness on hate crime.
Galmudug, officially Galmudug State of Somalia, is a Federal Member State in central Somalia, with its capital at Dhusamareb. It is bordered to the north by the Puntland state of Somalia, to the west by the Somali Region in Ethiopia, to the east by the Indian Ocean and to the south by the Hirshabelle state of Somalia.
The Somali diaspora or Qurbajoogta refers to Somalis who were born in Greater Somalia and reside in areas of the world that they were not born in. The civil war in Somalia greatly increased the size of the Somali diaspora, as many Somalis moved from Greater Somalia primarily to Europe, North America, Oceania and South Africa. There are also small Somali populations in Asia. The UN estimates that in 2015, approximately 2 million people from Somalia were living outside of the country's borders.
China–Somalia relations are the bilateral relations between China and Somalia. Somalia maintains an embassy in Beijing. China has an embassy in Mogadishu. Somalia and China are upgrading their relationship to "Strategic Partnership".
The North American Union (NAU) is a theoretical economic and political continental union of Canada, Mexico and the United States, the three largest and most populous countries in North America. The concept is loosely based on the European Union, occasionally including a common currency called the amero or the North American Dollar. A union of the North American continent, sometimes extending to Central and South America, has been the subject of academic concepts for over a century, as well as becoming a common trope in science fiction. One reason for the difficulty in realizing the concept is that individual developments in each region have failed to prioritize a larger union. Some form of union has been discussed or proposed in academic, business, and political circles for decades. However, government officials from all three nations say there are no plans to create a North American Union and that no agreement to do so has been proposed, much less signed. The formation of a North American Union has been the subject of various conspiracy theories.
Somali Canadians are Canadians of Somali origin or are dual Somali and Canadian nationality.
Amanda Lindhout is a Canadian humanitarian, public speaker and journalist. On August 23, 2008, she and members of her entourage were kidnapped by Islamist insurgents in southern Somalia. She was released 15 months later on November 25, 2009, and has since embarked on a philanthropic career. In 2013, she released the book, A House in the Sky: A Memoir, in which she recounts her early life, travels as a young adult, and hostage experience. In 2014, the book was optioned to become a major motion picture by Megan Ellison, with Rooney Mara playing the role of Lindhout.
Robert Singer is a businessman, and chairman of Spero Impact Solution. He is a volunteer senior executive of several diplomatic, Jewish, and educational nonprofits and initiatives, including Center for Jewish Impact (Chairman), Alumot Or, SASA Setton, the Anières Program (co-founder), Combat Antisemitism Movement, and Israel Venture Network.
Ahmed Hussen is a Canadian lawyer and politician who has been serving as the Minister of International Development since July 26, 2023. A member of the Liberal Party, Hussen has also sat as the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Toronto-area riding of York South—Weston since the 2015 federal election. He previously served as the Minister of Housing, Diversity and Inclusion from 2021 to 2023, Minister of families, children and social development from 2019 to 2021 and the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship from 2017 to 2019. He is the first Somali-Canadian to be elected to the House of Commons and the first to hold a federal Cabinet position.
Aytzim, formerly the Green Zionist Alliance (GZA), is a New York–based Jewish environmental organization that is a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity. A grassroots all-volunteer organization, Aytzim is active in the United States, Canada and Israel. The organization is a former member of the American Zionist Movement and has worked in partnership with Ameinu, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL), Hazon, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, Interfaith Oceans, GreenFaith, Mercaz/Masorti, the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care, and the Jewish National Fund (JNF)—although Aytzim has long criticized JNF for not prioritizing sustainability and environmental justice in its actions. Aytzim's work at the nexus of Judaism, environmentalism and Zionism has courted controversy from both Jewish and non-Jewish groups.
Somaliland and the United States do not have official diplomatic relations. While Somaliland operates a representative liaison office in Washington, D.C., it does not have formal diplomatic status under the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. Both countries do maintain contact as delegations from both sides have met in the past.