by Naureen Akhter
EDITOR’S NOTE: In partnership with Trinity Church Wall Street, ICNY’s Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy, now in its first year, is empowering diverse religious leaders and faith-based activists to create positive change in their communities, by educating them on the city’s complex government agencies, civic institutions, legal systems, and political processes. More info on the academy is available here.
I never participated in student government. Growing up, local politics meant little more than bold names on blue card stock in storefronts. Like many immigrants, my goal was to do my work, keep my head down, and get my little piece of the pie.
One day I realized there might not even be a pie for me or my community to take part in. The underlying fears of Muslims that mostly sequestered itself to comments sections or micro aggressions became part of the national conversation. Islamophobia was becoming official government policy. Nightmares of internment camps did not seem so far fetched. Fifteen years after 9/11, politicians started scapegoating Muslims, Mexicans, and anyone different enough to focus the frustrations of millions of economically disadvantaged Americans.
At that moment, I committed myself to ensuring my community had more representation in government. To survive the onslaught of fear-driven policies, racist rhetoric, and scapegoating, we needed to elect decent people to office. We needed a more diverse government, with more Muslims, African-Americans, Asians, Latinos, LBGTQ and individuals who shared experiences with the people they represented. And we needed to do it by participating.
Organizing a community towards greater civic engagement requires learning how our government institutions work, building relationships with community leaders, communicating specific needs and advocating for them fiercely. But how does a community organizer begin to acquire these skills, and to make those connections? That is what is being offered by The Interfaith Center of New York in a program I was fortunate enough to join, along with 19 other New York City faith leaders: The Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy, often referred to by the acronym “ICLA.”
ICNY’s Interfaith Civic Leadership Academy meets with Jonathan Soto and Sarah Sayeed (3rd and 6th from left), of the Mayor’s Community Affairs Unit
My time at ICLA has been invaluable in providing me the tools to start effectively navigating this space. We have been given access to trainers from various city agencies and veteran community organizations that many of us did not even know existed as resources! The structure of the program – eight months of training, six months of community based project support, and two months of follow-up reporting – allows us to take everything we’ve learned and apply it to the communities we serve.
CUNY CLEAR presents a “Know Your Rights” training to ICLA fellows – other trainers include the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, the Center for Court Innovation, Legal Hand, Metro-IAF, the NYPD and others
As we near the end of the training period and begin work on our projects, I am grateful not just for the knowledge I’ve gained, but for the relationships and conversations I’ve had with the fellows over the past six months. It is uniquely valuable to regularly meet and interact with people from such different walks of life, who are so different in their practices, lifestyles, even looks, but who share a common interest in furthering the well-being of their communities, and of our communal city. Proposed projects vary from delivering aromatherapy gardens to candidate forums to social justice workshops. I cannot wait to see what each and every fellow executes. I know through our work at ICNY, we will make this city an example of vibrant, cohesive communities working together towards better, more transparent government and respectful policing.
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Naureen Akhter is a Bangladeshi American Muslim activist, parent and entrepreneur. She serves on her local Community Education Council and has served the office of the Mayor on various education initiatives. She is an organizer with Muslims for Progress, helping to mobilize the Muslim American community towards increased civic engagement. As a parent of two young children in the New York City public education system, she is passionate about improving her community to best serve them and future generations. Prior to this she was an Associate at Dalberg Global Development. She has a Bachelors from Barnard College, Columbia University in Physics. Naureen is also a social media influencer – sharing her beautiful cake creations with her thousands of followers on her blog Kitchen3N. She has a love for baking and all things culinary. She speaks Bengali and Italian. She and her husband recently performed Hajj, fulfilling a lifelong obligation to her faith.
