We are proud to share with you our incredible accomplishments for 2018. We have had a year of tremendous growth, increased visibility, lessons learned, and exciting future directions. Join us as we reflect on the top ten accomplishments from this year:
One: After seven years of being primarily volunteer run, we now have four paid staff and twenty-two trainers.
Two: We wrapped up our first-ever, year-long anti-sexual assault advocacy training program for student leaders at five campuses across the country. By the end of this program, we trained twenty-five student leaders to continue programming on their campus and had 134 students participate in our two hour sexual violence 101 foundational workshop.
Three: We expanded our board to include some of the country’s most talented, accomplished, and creative women and developed a three-year strategic plan that will help us deepen our programming by emphasizing racial equity, inclusivity, healing justice, and female Islamic scholarship.
Four: We expanded our programming to lead or co-lead more than 82 different events, including leading 28 workshops, 16 professional development trainings, 4 healing spaces, co-presenting at 4 webinars, presenting at 12 national conferences, and launching two capacity building projects with key Muslim leaders.
Five: We expanded our virtual resource center by twelve publications and four videos.
Six: We expanded our research programming arm by bringing on Alia Azmat as our Manager of Research Projects. Exciting research results from our evaluation project will be coming in 2019! Our partnered program with ACCESS in Michigan, led by our intern Maliha Ahmed, also produced compelling evaluation results, which were shared at the 2018 Annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA); research paper to follow in 2019!
Seven: Each of our team members received awards for their work! Executive Director Nadiah Mohajir received the 2018 Chicago Foundation for Women Impact Award and 2018 El Hibri Foundation Community Builder Award. Her acceptance speech is here. Director of Sexuality Education and Training Sameera Qureshi was selected to receive the 2018 Emerging Activist award from the National Women’s Health Network. The acceptance speech is here. Our Programs and Outreach Manager in Los Angeles, Sahar Pirzada, was highlighted in the 2018 Asian Pacific American Heritage Month gallery hosted by the city of Los Angeles. You can read her spotlight here.
Eight: We continued our work building within the movement through our participation in the NoVo Foundation’s Move to End Violence Program, leading South Asian Circles, and partnering with the Justice for Muslims Collective and Muslim Advocacy Network against Domestic Violence (MANADV). Moreover, we were invited to convene twenty-five religious leaders and activists from the gender-based violence field to build a shared understanding of preventing violence in Muslim communities.
Nine: Our work was highlighted in national media platforms such as Teen Vogue, NPR Weekend Edition, Fusion TV.
Ten: We launched our first-ever pop up shop, featuring merchandise with our messaging.
It’s been an exciting and productive year for us! We are looking forward to continuing this great work as we begin 2019 with a renewed sense of hope and direction.