Ruqia Abdi is a Cultural Liaison at Hennepin County Library. She has an extensive experience in working with immigrant population of East Africa. As a teenager, Ruqia started to work for the United Nations Operation in Somalia in 1994 as translator. She arrived in the US 2000 and started to work for Minneapolis Public Schools as Bilingual educational assistant in 2001. From 2010 to 2015 she worked for Cedar-Riverside Community School as a receptionist/parent center monitor. She also served as a board member and led an after school program called Success Steps. She is now working as a part of the grant team delivering library services to Cedar Riverside.