Charles Myadze and Nia Trammell from Nigeria, Samba Baldeh from The Gambia and Nasra Wehelie from Somalia have begun to make their civic contributions to the Madison area. Trammell is a Dane County judge, Baldeh a state representative and Myadze and Wehelie Madison alders.

Trammell grew up in Madison and is now a Dane County Circuit Court judge.

“I am currently in the juvenile justice rotation,” Trammell said. “There are three areas that I primarily focus on that would include juvenile delinquency, children in need of protection and services or CHIPS and then areas where we have to terminate parental rights. They are very tough cases. It’s hard to see and to grasp some of the experiences our children in our community encounter. But most of the cases I have dealt with have concerned child abuse and neglect and then children committing crimes. No matter how you package it, it’s tough stuff. There is nothing shiny or glossy about it. But when the kids come into my courtroom with their families, I feel like that is the area I can have the most impact. For me, coming into this job, I was asked what rotation to go into, I said youth and juveniles was definitely an area because I wanted to be able to connect with youth in our community and their families and to help create pathways out of cycles that they have been experiencing and have been stuck in. And what I can say is that I do have a great appreciation for the approach that the juvenile court takes because it is done with trauma-informed care.”

And Trammell brings her African-born values to guide her in decision-making.

“For me, there were really three core values that I grew up with,” Trammell said. “The first is probably the undeniable importance of family. And that would include not just your nuclear and extended family, but also your village. I believe in my culture and my family, we absolutely ascribe to that idiom that ‘it takes a village to …’ and their strong sense of community and problem solving together to improve the conditions of everyone around you in your orbit. Second, I grew up knowing that I would have a tremendous amount of respect for my elders. You held your elders in high regard and never showed disrespect around them. And the third thing I would say is that there is this work ethic. You are expected to work hard and remain very disciplined. I think those are the things that have shaped who I am today, my philosophy and to a larger extent, it influences how I behave in the courtroom.”

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Samba Baldeh is the senior elected official of the group, having been first elected to the Madison Common Council in 2015 before successfully running for the state legislature in 2021. Baldeh grew up on a farm in Choya, a rural community in The Gambia.

“My village was one of those villages where they didn’t want the written influence and therefore, they rejected having the English school in the village,” Baldeh said. “And so the school was very, very far. So what I did growing up was being among people who didn’t look like me and my community. I was among Peace Corps volunteers who worked in rural areas. I saw what they do and how they did it. And so I became very curious around what they were doing. And so even though I wasn’t meant to get a western education, I was very curious about it and decided at some point, I would do it. And so, as soon as I was able to trek the nine miles to the school, I decided to go. Eventually my grandparents whom I was living with at the time and my uncles decided it was okay if I wanted to stay there. Besides that I would still come to the farm on the weekends and evenings after school and stuff like that.”

Baldeh became involved in international activities as an adult, which led to him coming to Madison and the United States.

“I visited the United States around 1999,” Baldeh said. “I attended a conference, a global meeting of generations, in 1999. This was organized by former President Carter’s foundation. At that conference in Washington, D.C. is where I met a coordinator at Madison College. Geoff Bradsaw, the student life coordinator at Madison College and I were in the same group at this conference. We talked about the programs at Madison College, their IT programs and things like that. I was very interested in their IT program. I eventually, later on, decided to immigrate to the United States so I could attend Madison College. That’s how I ended up in Madison. And eventually, I became a U.S. citizen in 2005.”

When Baldeh spoke about African values that he uses to navigate the community, he spoke more about African and American values that guide his life.

“The American culture and the African culture — in my case The Gambian culture — are different,” Baldeh said. “There is beauty in both. The Gambian culture, for example, values family and support for the village. If your parents are not able to bring you up, instead of being placed into foster care, a family member takes care of you. How do I use that experience or cultural knowledge? The United States is a hard-working community. We’re a culture of hard work. We’re a culture of making things happen. It also works both ways. Everyone wants their kids to be successful. As long as we are able to climb the ladder to be successful, you can go as high as you want. That’s really what pushed me to go to school and pursue all of these careers that were never on my radar. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would run for political office. Despite the cultures being distant for a large extent, I think what I have been able to do is to filter what I believe is in the best interest of my development in being a much more productive member of the society and how I can help my community. I bring those together and try to help them make me what I wanted to be as a human being. And so as I said, there are challenges in both cultures. But again, for me, it’s understanding those challenges, understanding what I consider the best parts of each culture and then bring those together and help me be a better citizen.”

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Nasra Wehelie grew up in a poverty-stricken community in Somalia and came to the U.S. as a teenager. She attended MATC and then UW-Madison, got married and raised a family while also working often full-time jobs.

“We were very responsible young kids, going very early in the morning for the grand hiking board,” Wehelie said about her youth in Somalia. “It’s a long board and it is useful for memorizing and reading the Quran and reading and writing and memorizing. One thing I remember is how we used to compete with each other to see how much we could write on that board and how much we could memorize. Some of the words were long. We could write almost 30 verses on both sides. And the ink that they used is charcoal. You needed to read it before it dried up. And once it dried up, you memorized it. We never had the teachers pressuring us. We used to pressure each other in terms of competition and how we can be the best that we can be.”

And it was a sense of belonging to a community that allowed her people to survive and succeed in spite of the conditions.

“You are a community child,” Wehelie said. “It’s not like you belong to your family or your parents. It was a community where everyone was responsible for each other, but also respected and loved each other. We would come together at nighttime and count the stars. Some of the elders would tell stories.”

Wehelie is now the alder for District 7, which is located in southwest Madison.

“My main objective is to listen to my constituents’ concerns and share information about what is happening in the city as well as some of the nuances that happen in the city and how it affects my district,” Wehelie said. “Some of the issues are how we can have affordable housing, employment and public safety. All of those things are what I champion in bringing some of those key challenges to the agenda. Every district has its challenges. I’m trying to be more proactive in asking the constituents about some of the challenges and then apply those to the needs on a city level. Also as a Black Muslim woman, I also represent some of the underrepresented, BIPOC community where sometimes some of those issues that are key throughout our communities are not at the decision-making table. I see how I can be a voice to the voiceless.”

Wehelie cited a number of intersectionalities in her life as an African, a Muslim, a woman, an immigrant, a Somali and others that influence her.

“It’s how I do the best of my ability, but also not seeing who is doing what and how I can compete with others, but how I can compete with myself and do the best I can,” Wehelie said. “That’s one of the things that I bring from my Somali values, Muslim values, African values and immigrant values. Those are the common denominators for all of these communities. Nothing comes easy for us. We have to work more than enough to get where we are. That’s how I see the values and how I bring my values to this community.”

African immigrants have made a big — maybe invisible — impact on Dane County. Serving as elected officials is just the latest. We look forward to their contributions.