LOCKLAND, Ohio — Khalidou Sy buys diapers. He takes a handful and stuffs them in his bag. His wife is having a baby next month. He laughs because sometimes he can’t believe it.
Sy fled his West African country almost ten months ago to escape slavery and military oppression.
“Some were raped, others killed,” he said. “Bad things happened.”
He came to America with nothing. No clothes. No food. No place to live.
“They only have hope,” said Sy.
On a recent Friday, several bicycles were parked outside the Valley Interfaith Community Resource Center in Lockland. People were already lined up outside before it opened.
Here Sy found hope.
He says the people of Mauritania call it the “House of God.”
Keith BieryGolick
It’s a place where hundreds of asylum seekers come for food, clothing and help filling out legal documents. A place where Sy translates for a man who didn’t know what to bring.
“Helping people was like gasoline … in my machine,” he said.
And the Mauritanian refugees need this. After an asylum application, it can take months before a work permit is issued.
In 2023, more than 2,700 Mauritanians came to Ohio, according to a Washington Post analysis of U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. More than half of them came to the Greater Cincinnati area.
It was an influx of people that the owner of this nonprofit organization feared could bankrupt him.
“People came to us and they were hungry,” said John Keuffer, CEO of the Valley Interfaith Community Resource Center. “And that’s our mission: to feed hungry people.”
Keuffer said he asked government officials everywhere for help, but no one helped him, so he relied on people like Sy to help other Mauritanians translate before his work permit was approved.
“If you leave out the immigration aspect,” Keuffer said, “when you have people who are starving, it can be an ugly result.”
A few blocks away, Vincent Wilson is strumming bicycle spokes. He says you can play them almost like a guitar. He basically tunes them.
“You can hear it,” he said.
Sy knows Wilson well.
“He gave me a first bike – someone stole it. He gave me a second bike and someone stole it,” Sy said. “So he gave me a third bike with a lock.”
Wilson teaches English as a second language in the building next door. He has been doing this for two years. But in one week, the number of students in his classes rose from a few dozen to 150.
Wilson was an avid cyclist and soon noticed how far people in his class walked every day. They had no other way to get around. He began asking cyclists he knew for donations.
“Three bikes became 10 bikes, which became 40 bikes,” he said. “And at that point I thought that was not sustainable.”
Keith BieryGolick
Some of the bicycles kept breaking down because the Mauritanians travelled hundreds of kilometres with them. Wilson opened a makeshift repair shop, repaired bicycles and taught others how to repair them.
The shop has no name. Parts are scattered all over the floor and almost no one speaks English. Wilson works on bikes there every Friday afternoon.
When asked what it meant to do this work, he laughed and shook his head.
“It’s pretty much everything,” he said.
Sy no longer needs a bike. After getting his diapers, he drives away from the food bank. He has to go back to work, where he says he recently got a raise because his boss wants him to stay.
Beyond that, however, Sy does not know whether he and his family can stay in America. A hearing in his asylum case is scheduled for next year.
“Is there hope here? Of course,” he said. “Because this is a free country.”
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If you would like to help the Lockland bike shop, Wilson says Donate in any condition are welcome. You can donate here: https://queencitybike.org/donate/
More information about How to donate to the Valley Interfaith Community Resource Center can be found here: https://www.vicrc.org/donations/
