COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP

Community service and engagement have been important parts of my high school experience.

As Vice President and now President of the Sand Hill Chapter of NCL, I’ve led initiatives such as Bear with Care, Lytton Gardens, and beach clean-up. Through these activities, I’ve come to better understand the diverse needs within the San Francisco Bay Area.

Only 14% of girls in rural Pakistan graduate from high school. DIL provides high-quality, low-cost education to thousands of underserved girls across Pakistan. Currently, the organization serves 61,000 students across 191 schools. I believe that no child should be denied access to life-changing education.

In 2020, I founded the Youth DIL Board and have since served as the President of the Bay Area Chapter. We raise awareness about the importance of girls’ education in Pakistan by highlighting educational disparities through speaking at local events, publishing newsletters, and conducting digital campaigns. The Youth Board has helped achieve a fundraising goal of $500,000.

I’ve had the great opportunity to serve on Congresswoman Anna Eshoo’s Student Advisory Board for California’s 16th Congressional District. The board was part of Rep. Eshoo’s Committee on Ethics and Social Justice in Technology, and our goal was to provide input into policy discussions that reflect our communities’ diverse needs and help shape decisions in Washington. I worked with my peers to co-write a legislative proposal calling for stronger consumer privacy protections, particularly in holding large tech companies accountable for such protection. Our proposal identified low-income communities as especially vulnerable to data exploitation.

I am a Curriculum Advisor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at Northwest Suburban College, a nonprofit organization that prepares underprivileged students for careers in healthcare. We want the next generation of medical and dental assistants to be equipped to serve diverse communities. Each year, I update the course curricula to include cultural competence training, focusing on the needs of Muslim immigrant patients. This effort ensures students develop the cultural sensitivity necessary to provide compassionate and effective care to underserved populations.

GLI empowers and educates middle and high school students to advocate for human rights, equality, and universal education both in the United States and worldwide. GLI builds movements of informed advocates for universal girls’ education, cultivating a new generation of leaders for social change.

I have been an active member of my GLI chapter at Menlo School for nearly 4 years. This past year, I was honored to be selected from over 100 candidates in the Bay Area to serve on GLI’s Student Advisory Board. In this role, I help plan action workshops, conduct trainings, and collaborate with GLI staff and fellow leaders to develop programming for all Northern California chapters. I also work closely with school chapters in the Bay Area to bring in speakers and raise awareness of pressing issues facing women worldwide. I am excited to serve my community in this leadership role.