| Arab American Action Network | |
3148 W. 63rd St. Chicago, IL 60629
773-436-6060
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Staff
Hatem Abudayyeh
Executive Director
Rasmea Yusef
Associate Director
Samira Ahmad
Lead Case Manager
Gihad Ali
Youth Organizing Program Coordinator
Halima Bahri
Youth Services
Program Coordinator
Muna Hammad
New Americans Initiative/ Citizenship Project
Nadia Musa
AmeriCorps Members
Medinah Abdelmuti
Hanan Ghanayem
Rowaida Nofal
Muhammad Sankari
Fatmah Tabally
Shira Tevah
Laila Younes
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Board
Lamees Talhami
Louise Cainkar-Mashrah
Treasurer
Laila Farah
Ahlam Jbara
Mona Khalidi
Souzan Naser
Ora Schub
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Congratulations to Gihad Ali, Emerging Leader
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Gihad Ali received the National Network of Arab American Communities (NNAAC) Emerging Leader Award at the Arab American Institute (AAI)/ NNAAC National Leadership Conference October 1.
Read more below.
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AAAN Executive Director Interviewed Twice by Al Jazeera English
"Arabs and Muslims carve a place in the U.S.," September 15. Islamophobia may have grown, but progress is being made as activists question 'media stereotypes'.
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"US Muslims speak of unjust suspicion," September 10.
A majority of Muslims in America say their lives have become more difficult since the 9/11 attacks.
Watch the video here.
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Upcoming Events
AAAN Events
Family Reading Night
Saturday, November 17th
5:30-7:30 PM
Bridgeview Public Library
7840 W. 79th Street
Bridgeview, IL
In honor of Arab Heritage Month, bring your family for a reading night with stories in English, Arabic, Polish, and Spanish.
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OP residents to host bowling fundraiser by Orland Park Prairie Staff September 28, 2011 | 11:52 AM
The Miracles Made Thru Research organization will be holding a bowling fundraiser benefitting Children's Memorial Hospital from 9 p.m.-midnight Saturday, Oct. 22.
 Ibrahim Haleem of Orland Park smiles in a photo with his sister Yasmeen. The Haleem family is hosting a bowling fundraiser Saturday, Oct. 22, for the Miracles Made Thru Research organization.
The event will be held at Orland Bowl, located at 8601 W. 159th St., in Orland Park.
The Miracles Made Thru Research organization was founded by the Haleem family. At 6 weeks old, Ibrahim Haleem was diagnosed with Ductal Plate Malformation, which causes the liver to function abnormally. He received a liver transplant, but there were several complications that followed.
Haleem needed a second transplant and received it few years later, but the organ failed within weeks. After two more transplants, Haleem was diagnosed with DeNovo Autoimmune Hepatitis in 2002, which occurs in about five percent of liver transplant patients.
In November 2007, the Haleem family held a fundraiser at Orland Bowl. More than 250 family members, friends and hospital affiliates attended the event to raise money and awareness about the disease. The benefit raised $10,000, which was donated to Children's Memorial Hospital for further research on the condition.
Due to the success of the first bowling fundraiser, the Haleem family held a second one in 2009, which also raised another $10,000.
Miracles Made Thru Research officially became a non-profit organization in 2010. The organization funds research in hopes of finding a cure for DeNovo Autoimmune Hepatitis.
The fundraiser costs $30 per person and includes dinner. There will also be a raffle and the option to sponsor a lane to raise money for the hospital. The lane sponsor includes six bowlers, dinner, company signage and a full-page advertisement in the program for the event. There are three levels of sponsorship including the $300 bronze level, $500 silver level or the $1,000 gold level. Companies may also just advertise in the event program as well.
To find out more about this year's bowling event, contact Yasmeen Haleem at (708) 289-6912 or Ibrahim Haleem at (708) 945-5805.
For more information about the organization, visit haleemfoundation.org. National Conference of Committee to Stop FBI Repression - November 5, 2011
Join us for a national conference of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression in Chicago, IL on Saturday, November 5, 2011.
Register here.
More information coming soon! Please write to info@stopfbi.net with questions.
Semi-Annual Grand National GalaArab American Association of Engineers and Architects
Semi Annual Meeting Grand National Gala Saturday, November 12th, 2011 Registration Starts at 4:00pm. Double Tree HiltonBallroom
1909 Spring Road Oakbrook, Illinois 60521 Cost: $50......Individual Tickets $600....Table of 10/Sponsorship Distinguished Speaker: Dr. Usama Fayyad, Former Chief Data Officer and Executive Vice President of Yahoo Inc, founder and currently oversees the Yahoo Research organization globally. Entertainment: Albert Agha, Band & Singer Odyssey Cruise In Chicago Navy Pier Sunday, November 13th, 2011 Cruise Time: 12:30pm~2:30pm, Boarding: 11:45am Cost: $65 Adult $35 Kids (4-12) Free Kids (under 4)
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AAAN Updates=========================================
AAAN staff and community members participated in the annual Marquette Park Unity Fest on September 10. Featuring arts & crafts, health screening, and music, the fest is an effort by the International Human Relations Council to "promote unity on the southwest side of Chicago," emphasizing "that we all are either immigrants or descendants of immigrants and that we have much more in common than we have differences."
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AAAN Executive Director joined the Council of Islamic Organizations of Greater Chicago, the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago, and hundreds of attendees September 10 to commemorate the 10-year anniverary of September 11, 2001, and to advance peace and unity. Governor Quinn and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle were also present.
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Cultural Outreach Coordinator Muhammad Sankari attended a community discussion in Englewood hosted by the Project on Civic Reflection about the meaning of 9/11. "It was a very constructive way to discuss the impacts of September 11th on communities both within and outside the United States," Sankari says. "It was one of the few opportunities I have ever had where participants challenged the dominant narrative and were critical of the rush to judgement against all Arabs and Muslims."
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AAAN's after school program at Stevenson Elementary began the fall semester on September 12th. This year the tutoring, homework help, and skill-building sessions have been extended to 5:00 PM.
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The Arab Women's Committee celebrated the Eid, in a somewhat belated fashion, with almost 100 members on September 14th.
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Executive Director Hatem Abudayyeh and Youth Organizing Program Coordinator Gihad Ali attended a two-day communications training in Princeton, NJ. Underwritten by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and facilitated by Spitfire Strategies, the session is supporting the formulation of a communications strategy and plan for the AAAN's Healthy Relationships project.
========================================  The AAAN held a cross cultural dialogue with the Indo-American Heritage Museum (IAHM) as part of the Chicago Cultural Alliance's "Talking About" series on September 24th. The dialogue focused on how food plays a role in culture and human interaction, and featured Indian and Arab snacks. ========================================  Four students from AAAN's civics class passed the citizenship test during the month of September. Congratulations! ======================================== 
From Unity Dialogues in Colo. and Calif. to screenings of Check Point Nation in Houston and New York City to community actions holding DHS accountable to stopping racial profiling in Tenn. and state government accountability in Maine, Rights Working Group members and allies held over 25 events during the National Week of Action - "Reflecting on Our Loss, Reclaiming Our Rights." Every action was a movement to bring communities together in order to concretize the possibilities of building meaningful relationships across communities to reclaim our rights.======================================== AAAN hosted a screening October 4 of the recently  released documentary COINTELPRO 101 with filmmaker Claude Marks. ========================================
AAAN brought a Palestine contingent to the anti-war march October 8 on the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan.
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National Arab Leadership | |
 AAAN's Youth Organizing Program Coordinator Ms. Gihad Ali received the Emerging Leader Award at the conference.
Ali started with the AAAN as a spoken word poet at our hip-hop cafes, spent two years as an AmeriCorps member with the Arab American Resource Corps, and is now amongst our senior staff, as the Youth Organizing Program Coordinator.
A graduate of DePaul University with a degree in Sociology, Ali is one of the most accomplished Arab youth organizers in Illinois, launching Students for Justice in Palestine at DePaul, and later founding the AAAN's Alliance of Young Women Activists (AYWA), which joined Arab, Muslim, and other young women in a safe social and political space to challenge sexism and patriarchy in U.S. society.
As a well-known and award-winning spoken word artist whose poem, "Eye to Eye," was made into a number-one-hit-song by Danish hip hop group Outlandish, Ali also brought creative writing, spoken word poetry, and hip-hop instruction to our program, juxtaposing it with political education, hard skills organizing training, and analyses of political, social, and economic conditions that Arab, Black, and Latino youth contend with in Chicagoland.
This activist formation, Silent Echoes, represents Arab youth voices in Chicago and the U.S., and Arab organizations from Detroit, New York, San Francisco, and elsewhere have attempted to replicate this creative model of youth empowerment.
Ali, AYWA, and Silent Echoes are currently challenging racial profiling in schools, promoting law enforcement accountability, and producing videos about young Arab women's lives.
Ali presents her work at conferences and trainings across the country, and served for a year on the National Executive Committee of the United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN). She has influenced the lives of hundreds of young Arabs, many of whom stay with the AAAN because of her influence as an incredible role model and a positive force in the life of her community.
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 The Arab American Action Network (AAAN) strives to strengthen the Arab community in the Chicago area by building its capacity to be an active agent for positive social change. As a grassroots nonprofit, our strategies include community organizing, advocacy, education, providing social services, leadership development, cultural outreach and forging productive relationships with other communities. |
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