One July 23, just a week after our successful Next Door Neighbors free screening event and panel discussion at Scarritt-Bennett Center, NPT screened the second in our series of Next Door Neighbors documentaries – Somali – at HCA as part of its Cultural Inclusion Series. The noon time screening was followed by a panel discussion facilitated by NPT’s Next Door Neighbors Producer Will Pedigo and included three members of Nashville’s Somali community: Amal Adam, Sr. Software Engineer for Ceres Terminals, Abdullahi Farah, ESL Teacher with The Center for Refugees & Immigrants of Tennessee and Max Farax, Sr. Database Administrator with HCA.
Panelists provided insights into the experiences of Somali refugees and their journey from a war-torn country to a new life in Nashville. Last year, we screened and discussed the first program in the Next Door Neighbors series “Little Kurdistan, USA.” We already have plans to screen the third program “Hablamos Español” in September. The fourth documentary in the Next Door Neighbors series is currently in production and will feature one of Nashville’s newest refugee groups, the Bhutanese. Through the Bhutanese community, Nashvillians will learn about the chaotic experience of initial resettlement and discover how refugees adapt and survive in their new home.
NPT’s Next Door Neighbors series is made possible by the financial support of The HCA Foundation, The Nissan Foundation and a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
