Skip to main content

Tell Me About You, Blogger.

Sometimes we need a facelift. It looks like Blogger has a new (inter)face. Since this is the first change I've seen to Blogger since I started 7 years ago, I have decided to start anew, with an introduction. 


Hello, my name is Sadia. 



I am a Project Manager at a nonprofit consulting organization in New York City. We provide capacity building expertise and strategic consulting in 3 major areas: resource development, governance and special events. I am responsible for tracking outcomes, program support, marketing and communications, and new business development. 

 I have extensive marketing, program support and monitoring experience in the nonprofit and private sectors. I've basically grown up within the nurturing spaces of NYC nonprofits like South Asian Youth Action, where I served a Board member, and Sadie Nash Leadership Project, which helps NYC youth become life-long leaders.  My greatest achievement was starting Remembering Forward, an intergenerational community arts program for diverse young women (ages 14-22) and senior women (ages 60-90).  This project was funded by SNLP's extraordinary ELLA Fellowship program. As part of program outreach, I persuaded, organized and motivated others to support and volunteer for this initiative. I created a project plan, engaged internal and external stakeholders, and facilitated weekly meetings with a group of 14 participants. In 2010, I increased enrollment by 80% and secured additional funding for this independent program. I used an entrepreneurial approach, found resources within the community, and took the initiative to start a new type of community program. I met seniors and youth in my local town, and gave youth an opportunity to lead and serve. Most of all, this project helped me to connect to people outside of my family and relatives... which at the time in my life, was difficult to do. 

At the Cricket Island Foundation (CIF), a family foundation that supports youth-led social change programming nationally, I offered my communications expertise to supporting website redesign, and media communications. This was my first time working with technical assistance for multiple organizations, and seeing the nonprofit landscape as a whole. 

In the private sector, I applied social media tools to the development of start-up casual-food restaurants. I engaged with customers and applied a customer service ethic to promoting the first Italian-Indian restaurant in our community in New Jersey.  This customer service ethic is fundamental because it prepares me to work with diverse clients. Between my two families, we have 4 small businesses. I am as passionate about entrepreneurship--and the ability of business to transform people's lives--as I am about the nonprofit industry. 



In 2011, I earned a Master of Science degree in Nonprofit Leadership from the University of Pennsylvania.  My graduate coursework at UPenn included business strategy, group dynamics, transformational reasoning and managerial decision-making---all of which I try to apply in my current work. I did a leadership practicum at Philadelphia Youth Network, a large (50+employees) intermediary that supports youth workforce development. I shadowed an incredible mentor and leader, the Vice-President of Business Partnerships. Among the many things she told me was "Perception is reality." In the work world, this is definitely the case. 


My mother however taught me, another lesson. "Everything starts with a clear heart. No matter what you do, if your heart is not clean, then none of your achievement will matter." 


These viewpoints are not an either/or paradigm. Both statements are true, in different ways. The contradictions of life are pregnant with possibility. The clashes of mental frames are the best opportunities to learn. 


I see that who I am, what I do, is very much about the people that I have had the blessing to meet in the world.

I am dedicated to applying my management, communication, and analytical skills to furthering the mission of strengthening a vital sector of New York City. As I continue to grow professionally in this space, I try to capture the moments of reflection and conversation that keep me whole. If you want to stay tuned, just follow me on Twitter.  

Labels:

Comments

  1. d4/24/2012

    this post leaves me with a strong urge to hire you. love that your greatest achievement was remembering forward - says so much about you. <3

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

And Today I was Called an Intellectual Whore

Today I was called a intellectual whore. I was told that all i want to do is intellectually screw people because what I like most about people are their ideas, experiences and thoughts. I have shown little regard for emotions, and sentimentality and for the UMPTH time this year, I find myself saddened by the loss of a friend. Here's his top 10 of most (im)memorable quotes: 1. "You're like Sex in the City, minus the sex." [Mindless stupidity is the implication] 2. "I am a warm person. You're not" 3. [paraphrase] I am a very sensitive person. I can't have you constantly hurting my feelings. 4. "I don't respect you" 5. "I am a generous person" 6. "We can't be friends, Sadia." 7. "You are emotionally crippled" 8. "What you need is a wall." 9. "I don't mean to hurt you." 10. "You're an intellectual whore." And the best question of today, and of the week perhaps, is when ...
3 comments
Read more

Why Not Friendship (Revised)- Repost

It is difficult to be merely a friend to a boy who seems more suitable as a husband than a friend. To reduce a potential life partner to a friend is immature and selfish. Friendship is the not the greatest type of relationship, but it is the safest. Friendship allows you to be intimate without the messiness of other things, like physical attraction, etc. Between friends, there is a warm permanence, a fuzziness that can be called appreciation and gratitude. There is also comfort and trust. Friendship is great if only for the possibility that one can know the beauty of another human being. The possibility of that is worth the difficulty of all else. But sometimes friendship is not enough. Sometimes, to reduce someone to friend when he should be much more is an affront to the opportunity God has presented before you. It is like saying to him, I know that we are amazing together, but we should be friends because I am a dumbass. To reduce him to friend also precludes the possibility of love...
7 comments
Read more

Amina Wadud and Dr. Umar Faruq Abd-Allah: Gender, Quran, A reading

If you really are that ambitious, here is a 2660 word essay submitted late for your enjoyment. Gendering the Qu’ran: Analysis of Amina Wadud’s Qur’an and Women (A Draft) “How can ideas that transcend gender be expressed in gendered language?” In her Qur’an and Woman, Amina Wadud asks a hard but uniquely modern question of the timeless text of the Qur’an (xii). She contextualizes the language and ideas of the Qur’an with a model of hermeneutics that is characterized by standard notions to context, grammar, and Weltanschauung, or world view. Rather than simply extend medieval exegesis, Wadud returns to the original text of the Qur’an in order to derive the fundamentals concerning Muslim women, their roles, and responsibilities. She does this through an analysis that is critical of both the cultural context of revelation, as well as the context of classical tafsir, or interpretations of the Qur’an, given that the androcentrism of seventh-century Arabia still pervades society today. She pr...
4 comments
Read more