Rana Abdelhamid

Rana Abdelhamid
Abdelhamid speaking at a "Families Belong Together" rally on the steps of San Francisco City Hall, June 2018.
Alma mater Middlebury College
Harvard Kennedy School of Government
Occupation Board Member, Amnesty International USA
Founder, Hijabis of NY
Founder, WISE
Title International Youth Advocate
Awards 2015 UNAUSA Leo Nevas Human Rights Youth Award
Running Start Rising Political Star

Rana Abdelhamid is an internationally acclaimed community organizer and social entrepreneur from Queens, New York. She is the founder of Hijabis of NY. Her work as founder of WISE has led to coverage in AJ+ with 1M views, a L’oreal award that got thousands of votes, an online self defense kit with 1M hits, and features in Teen Vogue, BBC, and HuffPo. WISE is [1] a self-defense, leadership and entrepreneurship program for young women in New York City,[2] other cities in the United States,[3] and internationally.[4]

Biography

Abdelhamid is of Egyptian descent and grew up in Astoria, Queens, in New York.[5] She has 3 siblings, named Omar, Mohammed, and Jenna. As a child, she studied karate.[3] Abdelhamid holds a black belt in Shotokan karate.[6] She first pitched her idea for the a self-defense class with women teaching women to her imam at the Queens Community Center when she was sixteen.[7] This was after she had been attacked on the street by a man who tried to take off her headscarf.[2] The class was rejected, but Abdelhamid continued to try and finally held her first class for Women's Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE) in 2010.[7] Since then, WISE chapters have been created in other parts of the United States and internationally, in Edinburgh, Dublin and Madrid.[4] The program has also grown to incorporate a summer camp in New York called Mentee Muslimah.[8] Abdelhamid describes creating WISE as "part of her 'healing process,'" according to Elle.[5] She told National Catholic Reporter that so-called "hijab grabs" are a common experience for Muslim women.[9]

Abdelhamid attended Middlebury College as a Posse Foundation Scholar, where she majored in international politics and economics.[10] At Middlebury, she and others organized a local chapter of Amnesty International USA.[10] After graduating from Middlebury,[11] she attended Harvard Kennedy School of Government,[3] after earning a Harry S. Truman Scholarship.[10] She is a recipient of the 2015 UNAUSA Leo Nevas Human Rights Youth Award, and the Running Start Rising Political Star.[12]

Rana is also a seasoned organizer with a focus on mass mobilization and international solidarity. She received her training both through grassroots practice and under Dr. Marshall Ganz, having studied public narrative and organizing at the Kennedy School. During the Arab spring she was involved in mobilizing diaspora communities in solidarity with grassroots activists. After the Muslim Ban was passed, Rana supported organizing thousands of people across Boston for the 20,000 person Copley Square protest and spoke alongside the likes of Senator Elizabeth Warren. After the death of Nabra Hassanen, Rana and her team worked to mobilize tens of thousands of people across ten cities in under 24 hours for vigils in her remembrance and prayer.

Rana has been featured on ELLE.com, BBC, Huffington Post and Aljazeera and was named an International Youth Advocate by the UNAUSA Foundation. She is highly committed to the global human rights movement and has worked on women’s and is currently the youngest serving Board Member of Amnesty International USA. Rana has a BA from Middlebury in International Politics and Economics and a Masters degree in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School. At Middlebury she conducted extensive political science and economics research on the political inclusion and mobilization of minority communities in urban contexts and on media representation of minority communities. At Harvard University, her research was focused on policy interventions to mitigate the prevalence of domestic violence in Queens, NY and on refugee integration policy in the US.

In 2014, she started a social media project called Hijabis of New York in order to "humanize and diversify the public narratives of Muslim women who wear hijabs," according to PBS.[13] The project is hosted on Facebook and takes the form of interviews conducted by Abdelhamid accompanied by photographs from various professionals.[13] In 2017, she and Maryam Aziz of WISE, along with Robie Flores and Alison Withers created a Self-Defense Starter Kit, which includes online resources and videos for Muslim women.[14]

Rana speaks Arabic and Spanish, loves to travel and learn languages. She is also a dedicated shotokan karate martial artist. Currently, Rana is working at Google Cloud and is based in San Francisco.


References

  1. ↑ "Women's Initiative for Self Empowerment (WISE) - The Harvard Innovation Labs". The Harvard Innovation Labs. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  2. 1 2 Weiss, Suzannah (1 January 2016). "Rana Abdelhamid's Women's Initiative for Self-Empowerment Teaches Self-Defense While Combatting Islamophobia". Bustle. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  3. 1 2 3 Zoll, Rachel (20 December 2015). "U.S. Muslim Women Debate Safety of Hijab Amid Backlash". The Brownsville Herald. Retrieved 30 June 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 "Rana Abdelhamid – Amnesty International USA". Amnesty International USA. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  5. 1 2 Rodulfo, Kristina (2016-01-13). "Why Young Muslim American Women Are Fighting Back". ELLE. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  6. ↑ Gebreyes, Rahel (2016-03-14). "WISE Founder Teaches Muslim Women Self Defense To Protect Against Hate Crimes". Huffington Post. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  7. 1 2 White, April (2016-05-16). "Stand and Deliver". Middlebury Magazine. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  8. ↑ "Once accosted for her hijab, 22-year-old woman now teaches Muslim empowerment". Daily News & Analysis. 2015-12-31. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  9. ↑ Fiedler, Maureen (2016-12-30). "The religious implications of the Trump election". National Catholic Reporter. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  10. 1 2 3 "Middlebury Scholar Wins Truman Scholarship". Posse Foundation. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  11. ↑ "Accosted for her hijab in New York, Rana Abdelhamid now teaches Muslim empowerment". The Economic Times. 2015-12-31. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  12. ↑ "Rana Abdelhamid". carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  13. 1 2 Sarabia, Alexandra (4 February 2016). "Meet the women of 'Hijabis of New York'". PBS NewsHour. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
  14. ↑ McNamara, Brittney. "This Self-Defense Toolkit Will Prepare You for ANYTHING". Teen Vogue. Retrieved 2017-06-30.
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