Once the only Somali girl taking the toughest classes at Lewiston High School, a quiet immigrant named Amran Osman has found both her voice and her purpose.

When her brother Abdi died from an overdose two years ago, Osman realized the types of organizations that might have helped him were focused on a wider, whiter community that didn’t connect with many of the people she knew.

So the 2021 University of Southern Maine graduate decided she would create one.

“I realized nobody’s doing it. Might as well do it,” she said, happy that she could “use my voice and actually make change” that could save and improve lives.

An early supporter and ongoing backer of Osman’s efforts was Steve Whalen, an Auburn native who is managing partner of City Realty in Allston, Massachusetts.

From the start, he said, he was “struck by her poise and clarity of focus.”

Osman, 25, told him community members would say a young person “died in their sleep” instead “of talking and being open about the truth, which was they had overdosed. Her mission was to get people to open up about mental health and substance abuse issues and begin the healing process by talking about these issues.”

Generational Noor, which offers a safe space for immigrant families and young people to gather and talk about difficult issues in their lives, is the result.

Osman, who moved to the United States from Kenya at age 3 and lives in Lewiston, said her siblings carry the last name Noor, which means light.

“I think it’s going to be a generational effort,” she said, “and hopefully this organization will be the light.”

Though Osman spends many hours weekly organizing round-table talks and keeping Generational Noor open on weekends and evenings for students to hang out or do homework, she isn’t paid for any of that.

“It’s a passion project for me,” she said of the organization, which is in the process of becoming a recognized nonprofit. “The work I do is a love letter to my family and my siblings.”

Whalen said that after the Oct. 25 mass shooting in Lewiston that left 18 dead, “I felt powerless and just hurting for the people killed and wounded, their families and the community as a whole.”

“Then I started to see the posts from Generational Noor opening up the conversation and getting the community together,” he said. “This gave me hope.”

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