Who is Najia Haneefi?
She is the co-chair of Right to Learn Afghanistan Ottawa and the International Experience and Engagement Coordinator at Carleton University. Haneefi is also a strong advocate for the liberation of Afghan women and fights for their education.
What’s her background?
Before moving to Canada in 2008 and raising her children with her husband, she lived in northern Afghanistan. As the Taliban’s influence spread in the mid-1990s, Haneefi was a university student. When the regime started to exclude women and girls from public life, she collaborated with her student association to host classes for girls and young women in her family’s basement. Haneefi encouraged her peers to do the same, resulting in 200 underground schools in northern Afghanistan. After running the underground schools for three years, she was caught but ultimately released.
What is she known for in Ottawa?
She’s a strong advocate for raising awareness of the plight of Afghan women and girls in Ottawa and in Afghanistan. She recently won the Ottawa Famous Five Award, which recognizes women and people who have substantially impacted the Ottawa and Gatineau region. Haneefi says it’s “a humbling experience to be recognized besides high-profile people.” (The other award recipients include Mariam Abdel-Akher, Cindy Blackstock, Marie-Nöelle Lanthier and Dr. Christina Romulus.) She says the award is for Afghanistan women. “My courage and justice-seeking inspiration always comes from them.”
What do people say about her?
In an Ottawa Citizen article, Haneefi recalled that as a newcomer to Canada, she worked as a consultant for Global Affairs Canada to provide cultural briefings to those deployed in Afghanistan. Early on, a participant criticized her for being too assertive.
She says that as she’s been an Ottawan for 16 years, she has learned to grow a thick skin. “In a fight of power, you can never back out; you have to move on. When you know you’re right, nothing can stop you,” she says.
What’s something people don’t know about her?
Despite her busy schedule filled with meetings, events and family life, Haneefi loves hosting people. She finds community gatherings with her friends and family a healing experience and a safe place to share pain and discuss trauma.
