Asha Ali Noor is a qualified teacher who has postgraduate qualifications in science and education.  She has taught primary, secondary and tertiary phases of education in her time as a teacher.  Asha has worked with children who are learning English as a second language for a considerable part of that time, both in the UK and abroad.  She is passionate about education and family learning, especially mother tongue learning.  So much so that she started an educational charity in Wales to raise the achievement of Somali children, SEF CYMRU, which is still going strong.  She has also worked as an independent consultant for community groups in England and Wales.  

Writing has always been a hobby for Asha.  Whilst working with young Somali children, focusing on raising achievement, she realised there was a gap in the children’s education.  Mother tongue was not being taught and the children’s proficiency varied.  For a while she organised Somali lessons in the community and persuaded schools with large numbers of Somali pupils to include Somali language in the curriculum.  Due to exam boards being unwilling to provide an examination in Somali the project unfortunately did not continue.  Parents bringing their children up in the diaspora have a difficult job keeping the mother tongue alive when the children are surrounded by other languages all day long and at home with television and sibling conversations being in the host language most of the time this makes it much harder.

She understands the struggle having brought up four children in similar circumstances at a time where there was little material available for Somali language learning.  Writing bilingual books to be read to children or be read by children themselves is a start to improving literacy in Somali.  Asha is keen to support parents who wish to help their child read and write in Somali.  She has written books for beginners and has produced Somali learning videos free to access on YouTube. We live in a world where screens dominate our children’s lives but that can be utilised in a positive way to encourage children to learn a language.

Asha hopes parents will enjoy reading her books with their children as much as she enjoys reading them with her grandchildren.