Amran Osman June 2023

Born in Kenya during her family’s flight from Somalia, Amran Osman grew up in Lewiston before going to college first at Central Maine Community College and then the University of Southern Maine. Serving on the student Senate as the Director of Racial Equity and Inclusion was an awakening: “That’s when I realized I wanted to make a difference.” After graduating from USM in 2021, she began working at Gateway Community Services as a community resource coordinator. The experience of helping immigrants coming into the community inspired her to start her own non-profit, Generational Noor, which helps the immigrant community “figure out and get resources regarding the opioid epidemic, especially because it’s so taboo and nobody talks about it.” Amran credits her fellow student leaders at USM for helping her take the first steps to becoming a community leader. “For the longest time I didn’t know what I wanted to do because I didn’t see a lot of people of color, people who look like me, in different places of power or places I found interesting. I had to kind of put myself at those tables and find resources for myself. At the end of the day, I’m a Somali black woman, I don’t have a lot of power, but the power that I hold, hopefully I can use it to make a change.”