Faith, Family & Advocacy: Rawida’s Path to AMAANA

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Marhabal and welcome back to Siddhi Stories, the podcast where we amplify the voices and celebrate the achievements of Palestinian women. I'm your host, Dela, and today we're diving into an incredible story of advocacy, faith, and the power of community support. Our guest today is Raweda Abu Khadil, a lifelong activist and advocate for individuals with disabilities. As a mother of five, including children with special needs, Raweda knows firsthand the challenges and joys that come with navigating life as a caregiver. Her experiences led her to co-found AMENA, Louisiana's first Islamic community resource center dedicated to providing support for Muslims and families living with disabilities. Raweda, welcome to Siddhi Stories. It's truly an honor to have you. How are you? Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. So we love starting off with a Siddhi-inspired question. Is there a tea or a coffee memory that reminds you of being back home in full scene with your Siddhi?

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Unfortunately, I don't remember my Siddhis that well. One had Alzheimer's. I wish I would have known her before she lost her memory, where you know I could have had that Hanan from that city. I did get to meet my city from my mother's side in her last couple months. And I got to feel that kind of Hanan a little bit because she got to Delhi and my kids. She got to meet all of them. She got to take pictures with them. Can you share a little bit about yourself? I grew up in New Jersey, so I was always around a lot of other people's cities and other Arabs. My auntie, my Martami, and my other Murtamis are all, you know, as old enough to be my cities, actually, because my dad was the youngest. And I always gotten the auntie feel from my older cousins, Alhamdulillah. So I mean, even though I didn't have like the true sense of my own cities around me, I always had, you know, Niswani Amiami and our neighbors that were like our other cities. So just because I didn't get to call my original cities city, I still had the cities of the Hara.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah, that's totally valid. Because I like this podcast isn't just highlighting like your own cities, it's highlighting that generation of cities. You know, those elders that like we look up to that we have to pass on their legacy. Yeah. I love that you were still able to have that. So you grew up in New Jersey. What bud are you from? Betanan.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

When did you make that move to Louisiana? I was 14 years old when I moved to Louisiana and it was an eye-opener. I was always around hot up, and then I moved to Louisiana, New Orleans, um, and they had no hot up. Now the city is filled with Palestinians, so much so that you can't go more than a block without finding um uh a Palestinian-owned business. Alhamdulillah.

SPEAKER_01 2:41

No, yeah, that's amazing, Michelle. I visited, and over the times I've seen so much growth within the community.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

And then she kept on getting kicked out of schools from her behavior, and we wound up moving to a city, uh a farm city, and like I have cows in my backyard. So I was the first Muslim for the almost that whole entire parish. We have parishes, we don't have counties here in Louisiana. So I was the first Muslim in that parish that they've actually met. And then they'd be like, Oh my god, like I see you guys in Walmart, I see you all in Walmart. I just never knew you talked English. And I was like, wow, did you ever think to stop and talk to a person? She's like, I'm so intrigued by your beauty. I'm so intrigued by your like you have no accent. I mean, you do. It's just not a Louisiana accent. I'm from New Jersey. No, no, and they would ask me, they're like, Where's your accent from? I'm like, Jersey. She was like, No, no, no, like where's your real accent from? I was like, New Jersey.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

And they're like, oh my God, you're so cute. Say it again. I give a lot of credit to Muslim who are in these places. I mean, you're also doing a great amount of dawah and like also just a great amount of yeah, you are truly on the forefront of changing people's perspectives. Your personal journey has been shaped by resilience and purpose, and your work for Amena like really reflects those same values. Before we dive into learning more about Amena, can we take it back to the beginning of your advocacy journey? So you've been a dedicated advocate for individuals with disabilities for over 25 years. Can you share what started that whole path for you?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

So for me, I would have to say experience led me to where I am today. You know, I had the typical 18-year-old marriage. One of many, I was like one of the youngest cousins to get married, and it was normal for everyone to get married around right after high school age. Of course, I applied to be to go to college and become an accountant. SubhanAllah Allah had different plans for me. And he gave me my firstborn, Najwa. And she's always been sick from the first day I had. I'm gonna say at six weeks, she was already hospitalized. So I started my journey young. And as much as I would explain to other people, like this is just not what I was thinking motherhood is, and I couldn't wait to be a mom. Wanted to have seven children. It's something that I've always planned for when I was growing up. She taught me so much. She taught the whole family. Upanullah. I was just talking to the Shaykh yesterday, came to visit us, uh, visit us at Amannah. And he was like, What made you so inspired to be here? And I was like, Because there's nothing else for our kids. 25 years ago, I'm not my only my only source of resources was the library and my subscriptions to my baby magazine, parenting magazine. I was all in it. I was looking for the benchmarks, and my daughter just was not hitting any of the benchmarks that she was supposed to be hitting. I was talking to my older cousins, I was talking to my mom, my aunts, and they were just like, no, chidula day to all the kids cry. It's normal. And I was like, I don't think you guys understand. My daughter's not sleeping at night. She's not sleeping during the day. She's just like non-stop crying. No matter what I do. The only time she's not crying is when I'm feeding her, and she would still pause in between the feedings and start crying. It turned out that she had a kidney infection because she had an UTI, because her tubes were not developed fully all the way. So she was on antibiotics for a couple of years until she was three years old, until they finally found that her tubes closed. And then alhamdulillah, after that, I started with her speech therapy because I had my second one. I found out I was pregnant on Najwa's first birthday. And I had to hide that pregnancy because my husband was so overwhelmed. He was so overwhelmed with Nejwa, which I don't think people understand how hard and how how much of a transition it is in your life that you go from wanting to have seven kids and and then all of a sudden he's like, Listen, this one is more than enough. Let's it'd do what we can for her. You know, let's just put, you know, every drip of blood that we have, make sure we make sure that it goes to her. Every blood spun and tears.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Like you knew right away that something was up.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

And no one agreed, even the doctor, and he was like, I mean, they're all babies, they cry. I was like, no, no, this is not it. I had my second one and she was right on the benchmarks. I know you know it's not right to compare kids, but I knew that something wasn't up because this one was hitting the benchmarks and the one the other one was so far back delayed with speech and crawling and trying to do like certain things, eye movement, she was just not making eye contact at all. With speech therapy at around two years old, right away, everything was out of pocket back then because autism was unheard of. So even when the doctor told me autism, he when I would say she has autism, they would say she's autistic. And I was like, no, she's autistic. And no one, no one understood what it meant. They were like, So that's so cool. You know, my brother draws really good. And I was like, no, no, I don't think you hurt me. It's autistic. And they just didn't understand. And then Arab would use the word hebla. And I was like, no, it's not Hebla. It's an intellectual disability. Like she'll be there. And I was going from doctor to different psychologists, psychiatrists, and she'll never be normal. She'll never really walk straight because she was still like rolling over to everywhere she wanted to go. She wasn't really crawling like the usual baby. She was just rolling everywhere she needed to be. She did get potty trained at a very early age. I I thank myself for that.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Give yourself a big fat on the back.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

Yeah, I body trained her at around a year and three months because her her um her urine used to get vacuumed back inside of into her kidneys, and that used to give her infections. So they said the earlier you can potty train her, the better. So I was like, okay, well, I mean, I'm not working, I'm not going to school, why not? I'm home all day. So I taught her and it worked. So I knew there was, I knew just from that that she's capable and she has so much potential. I just have to stay at it. I just proved to myself, okay, wait. They told me that she's probably gonna be in diapers until she gets into adulthood.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Wow. They set the bar so low, and you were able to set your own bar for danger, mashallah.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

I also I actually told one of the doctors that he told me, he told me she'll never really amount to anything. She's not a uh she's not a vegetable yet, but she eventually will be. And I was like, listen, you see that bar that you just put, that invisible bar, you just you know put it really, really low. You could take that bar and throw it out the window because I'm about to I'm about to let it go really, really high and I'm gonna reach it. You're gonna see, and I'm gonna come back over here and I'm gonna prove it to you one day. I cannot believe someone told you that. It was not just someone, it was a lot of someones.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

These are educated people that are in the field that were telling me this 26 years ago, 27 years ago. I was gonna say we've come such a long way. SubhanAllah. Alhamdulillah, alhamdulillah. So my journey was led by myself. I was just digging and digging, going to different doctors. I didn't like what this doctor was saying. If if I was not feeling the vibe, I was going on to the next doctor until I felt, until I felt the right vibe. I knew what worked for Nejwa that wasn't working for others. And she was one of her one of her own kind. I mean, she was like one of the first out of here in New Orleans, even in my family, that has, you know, the label of autism. So what I did, because everybody just didn't understand her, well, Nedjua was the first grandchild on both sides, my dad's side and my mom's side, luckily, because I don't know if I would have had the same support. So I used to punish my husband's family and my family by not going there because Nedjua was the life of the party. She was just so hilariously funny. And they loved the entertainment because it was cute coming from their first grandchild or their first great niece. So at the time, I had met Teppo Grand and I used to teach myself by going to um lectures, professional development days. It was always teachers and stuff. I was always the only parent there. And I was like, I don't care. I mean, I got this for free and I'm going. And the ones that weren't free, I was paying and I was going. There would be like three intensive day courses going from seven to ten at night for through for a whole weekend from Friday to Sunday. I was there. I was the only parent. It was always embarrassing because they would say, How many teachers do we have in the room? How many parents do we have in the room? I would always be like, be mean, like another person, stand up. And I just put my head down because I'm like the only Muslim there. Um with a hijab.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

You were there to be an advocate for your daughter of Ashallah. Like if no one else is going to, then you have to do it yourself.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

You know, my hijab makes me like a walking advertisement. So I feel like I would have to better myself just because I have this hijab on my head, you know, this cream that I hold so heavy on my head. And it's just so hard to hold it up when you're one of the only people going through other things that there's the only people going through. So not everybody has autism, but not everybody is a Muslim. Here I am, the only Muslim, the only parent of a kid with autism. And here I am with just Najwa. And I'm just talking about my baby that nobody else sees important but me. You know, I used to go to her schools and advocate for her IEP meeting, and they would just say, okay, the student, the student. I was just so upset. And I brought a big picture, sit it on the table, and I was like, this is who we're talking about. I just want you to know to put a face on the name. So when we're talking when we're talking about Najwa, I want you guys to know that this is a student. I want you to know that she's here. I love that you did that. Going back a step, I had gone to one of these professional development days, and it was taught by Temple Grandin, and she's a world-renowned PhD with autism. I think she's in her 60s now, and she's a doctor, and she's also a developer and in in and she she had her own invention. I met her in person. I talked to her, I talked to her mom. At the time, Blockbuster was closing, you know, before we had DVDs and these other technology things, we had Blockbuster. So I had to went and I bought the Temple Grandin movie off the shelves. I bought every single one. I handed them out to each one of the persons of the families. And I was like, if each person in your household does not watch this movie, I will not come to your house. So when there was Azuma and they would call me the Azumi, I'm like, okay, well, did Siem watch it? And she's like, oh, well, he's always in work. Well, you know what? I'm not coming. I'm sorry. And she was like, yeah, but he doesn't have time. I was like, well, I'm not coming. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

And then held people accountable.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yes. I held every single soul in every single household that's related to me responsible to watch this movie. So they know that when Najwa does certain things, she doesn't really mean it. And it was just her way of stemming and her knowing how to um come self-regulate, comfort herself so she can be comfortable in her setting and her environment with everybody around her. We're hot up. We need to be around people. We're forced to be around people. We have Azaim like seven days a week. Exactly. So I made sure that they learned. So what did I do without mean knowing that I was going to be doing doing this? My family, my husband's family, my family became walking advertisements for Nejwa and autism. So everybody knew somebody had a family member named Nejwa that had autism, and they were forced to watch this, and they love how Nejuwa is, and they always advocate for her if I wasn't around. So I loved doing that. And I I didn't know the outcome it would have until when she became an adult. Now they're like fighting over her and like, can I take Najwa to Walmart?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

She's such a joy, and she has like such an infectious personality and laughter and humor, and she's so incredibly smart, mashallah. Um I love all the steps you took to educate people, especially like you said, 25, 26 years ago, no one was talking about this, especially within the Autob community. But so I love the steps that you took to educate people, but then not just stop there, like holding people accountable of understanding what autism is. That's seriously so incredible, Mashallah. You have been able to create a space that unfortunately within our community, most people see it as taboo, but it really is needed. Can you share with us what is AMANA and how did that come about?

SPEAKER_00 14:20

I am one of the co-founders of AMANA, and it's spelled A-M-A-A-N-A. It is an acronym. It's our local disability community and resource center. And the name actually was given to me by Martami, Halimasalama, when we were there to visit, and we were looking for a name, and she told me, why don't you use the name Amanna? Wallah.

SPEAKER_01 14:41

Wait a minute.

SPEAKER_00 14:42

You're going to make me cry. I was just there. I happened to be there visiting, and I was telling her the struggles that we had. And I was like, now we're just looking for a name and I don't know what to, you know, what to name it. We have to come up with a strong name that would be strong in Arabi and not so like hard on the tongue for uh for MFK. And she was like, I'm not sure. And I was like, hmm, okay. I think we hidden until like two o'clock in the morning with my cousins. I didn't bring it up to anybody, but I couldn't wait to go back home. I even texted my partner, Rana, and I was like, I found the name. I found the name. I called and I was like, wake up, wake up. I found the name. And she was like, What's the name? I was like, Martami was like, what better name than Amana? They're in your hand as the man Rabna gave you, Nejwa, as an Imanna. Every single person that's coming in there is an Imanna. Why not just keep it at Emana? And she was like, my God, wait, I love it. I'm so glad you called me. Because we were so stuck on the name. So we finally got the name. And then we have over 80 volunteers. We had our volunteers come help come up with an acronym for the word for the name Amana. Had a lot of um information that we wanted to come in our name. So they came up with our logo and our acronym. So Amana wound up stay standing for American Muslims for accessibility, advocacy, and nurturing acceptance.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

That's a beautiful name. That's a that's beautiful. I think it really conveys just so much of what you're trying to do and the impact that you're trying to make. And for context, the person who Ruay the speaking about is actually Maysithi, um, who passed away a couple of months ago. And I am now actually fully emotional because I did not even know that story. And Sipanola literally throughout me recording these podcasts, I find out people who knew my grandmother are people who have these stories about her that are totally unexpected. I mean, for transparency, Rweda and I are cousins. She's my mom's first cousin. So I obviously knew she knows my grandma, but I was not expecting a story like that to come out about her. So thank you so much for sharing that. And your work is so deeply personal with everything that you're trying to do, given the work that you've done with Nejwa, like in your personal life, but also trying to make an impact as a Palestinian Muslim within the South. How do you feel like your identity as a Palestinian Muslim influenced you as a person, but also the work that you're trying to do within the community? We kind of touched upon that earlier, but if you can kind of give a little bit more depth to that.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

So, I mean, even though it's a Muslim organization, we do have non-Muslims that come to Amana. We just had a blood drive for the incident that happened in the French quarter when I think 11 people passed away. One of them happened to be a Muslim. The day was Karim Bidawi. And we had the blood drive in his name. So it was open to all. So we had all people from different walks of life coming in. I will tell you, every single person that walked in just said that they felt the love. They said they felt some kind of vibe when they walked in here. And she's like, I felt loved as soon as I walked in here. And every single one of the um the blah the blood drive ladies, the crew, said the same thing. And one of them came down to it, she was in tears. And she was like, I have to tell you, this space just gave me a different kind of aura to my body. And I was like, oh. I was trying to make everybody else happy and comfortable, which is great. You know, and every but every non-Muslim is a potential Muslim. And, you know, and I've I've never judged anyone alhamdulillah. And that's why I guess I'm cool with anyone and everyone. But a manna is supposed to be just that. You're supposed to feel like this is your safe space. And that's exactly what it is for our community. Even though we started as a disability resource center, we kind of became the community center outside the Mizjid. So this is the place that you can talk about what's going on in your family. We also have a mom group, a coffee chat every Wednesday, and every other Wednesday we have a sign language class that happens right after that. So we sit and we talk about everything that goes on.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. You're creating alternative spaces, like these third spaces.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Something that they've never had before in our community that we had in Patterson so many years ago that we don't have here. You know, and for me to inspire that, I love that. Every every volunteer that walks into this place, I make sure that they know when you're in here, I don't want you just to come to come here and be here for your service hours. I need you to be here because these kids are just depending on you. We have stories that touch your heart every single day. Every day there's an inspirational story that someone will text me or call me. They'll call me like I thought away the most amazing thing happened to me today. And I was like, it's 11 o'clock at night, dude. What happened to you that you had to call me and tell me? You know, this is one of our college student males. And he was like, Oh, I saw so-and-so at a wedding, you know, was outside the state. He came to me and he wouldn't let anybody help about me. He recognized me from a manna and he came straight to me and he told me, Can you help me? He was like, You know how honored I felt that this person, this special person, came to me to help him. And I'm like so glad that you're touched. So we're making, we're making an impact on our volunteers. And I love that we have that relationship with these volunteers. You know, they come and they go, they start, you know, they get married, they go off to college, and then we have a new round. Every year we get a new round of volunteers. And we're making that impact for them. And I always try to tell my volunteers when you're looking for your spouse, you're looking for the next generation. You guys are my next generation. And that's why I try to instill this leadership role for you guys, because I need you guys to be that role in leadership where you guys are making the next leader. You guys are tomorrow's inju tomorrow's generation. Your next generation is your offspring and the offspring and the offspring. We have to keep going by us becoming those strong leaders. And if our leadership in our misogynist, in our communities, are not giving it, we have to be that outlet. And that's all we are. We're becoming that outlet.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

You're opening up their hearts to like empathy and like having that experience of people who are different than you.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

So much so that they're changing their majors. Uh, I'm going in special educ special education. I think I want to be an audiologist, I think I want to go into a behavior analysis. And it's like, wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

You're changing literally the impact of generations to come. And then also just imagine the impact among the Autob community and how we change the stigma behind people with disabilities within the Autob community through the work that you're doing through these young kids. I think that's seriously so incredible. So, what are the services that you provide for within EMET?

SPEAKER_00 21:15

So we have parenthood trainings. Um, we had a total of 21 various courses were given to families with disabilities over the last year. We also have sign language class. We give out the sensory school bags every year at the beginning of the school year. We have um over 150 uh identified families, and you were trying to slowly get them in here and out of the house because some of them don't want to leave their their comfort zone. And some of them don't want anyone to know that they have a kid with special needs. We fundraise, we have support groups for the moms, dads. We have a sibling support group, which was like a disaster for the first one because all my kids did was talk bad about me. Us as parents don't really know the impact that we have on our on our other children. They were just so upset and they were talking to the other siblings. How their mom right in front of me. Like they even like they didn't even get embarrassed or anything. They were talking about how it was so hard that they picked up and moved, left their friends, and they left everything behind because my parents just had to move for Nejua. And everything is always about Nejwa. We can't go to Disney World unless we have this certain Atabaya. We can't do this unless we have this certain thing planned. Everything was supposed to be on schedule for Njuwa. That was the only way I can make my life comfortable, her life comfortable, and everybody else around us comfortable is to make sure that she is set. And I know once she's set, everybody else was set. I tell you, when I have Najwa, because she was my firstborn, it was so hard to parent. Parenthood just like hit me in the face. And subhanAllah, I think Rabna knew what I can handle with what I couldn't handle. They say you can plan as much as you want. Allah, the best of planners.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

He will plan. You can plan all day. His plan is gonna still overweigh your 25 plans. But he knew what you were capable of, mashallah. He knew that you had the strength. I mean, it's a gift. It really is. I just feel so honored to be her mother. And for her to be my daughter, like Rabna chose me to be her mom. It's like, wow, I must be really special. You are, you are. And I always tell my kids, you guys are like the chosen ones to be Najwa's caregiver. You know, we have a sign in Amen and it says people of Jannah. And I love calling them people of Jannah because they are angels in disguise. You know how they say always Rabna and your angels are always with you when you go visit the sick. I I'm not gonna call them sick, but they are those that always are in need of other people helping. And when you, when God chooses you as that tool, what else do you want better than you you being chosen by Rabna to be that tool to that person's answer, that solution to that person's problem? And Rabna chose you. So our volunteer program is called Ticket to Janna Program.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

I'm I'm touched. I'm touched by everything you do. And I've always known you as someone who's making a large impact within our family. I'm just so happy that you've been able to expand on that and actually make an organization to make a larger impact with other people and other communities. Mashallah, that's truly incredible. Your dedication to creating inclusive spaces that uplift the community is really admirable and it takes strength, resilience, and a deep sense of purpose. In many ways, our city's were the original community leaders. So shaping it. Yeah, shaping and guiding those around them. I'd love to hear more about your sitties and their story. I know that you said that you didn't have the privilege of getting to know your cities that well due to, you know, disabilities and then also distance. So we can, you know, shift this to people who are of that generation in general. But is there a lesson that your city or someone of that generation, your you know, your makeshift city is taught you that has stayed with you throughout your life? And how do you implement it in your day-to-day?

SPEAKER_00 24:50

Definitely, definitely. And I kind of implement it every single day with every single person I talk to. I've definitely been taught to become a leader and not a follower. Every single older cousin I have was a leader. Every single older Martam and mom and Siddhi of my cousins were inspirational leaders. They really didn't wait for the problem to be solved. They didn't wait for someone to come fix it. They fixed it. I I'm an I'm from a really strong generation of leaders, powerful women, Alhamdulillah. And I I can't stress it enough that it's seeing leaders in front of me made me become a leader and had fallen down now to my kids and these volunteers. These volunteers come in at the age of 16. You know, I still have some in their 30s that are coming to volunteer because they just love the vision and the mission statement. And they had the passion for it. And I'm still teaching them unknowingly, they're becoming leaders by just following my path. When we originally started, I was a coordinated volunteer coordinator. And I I found that passion through becoming a volunteer all in my entire life. I've been volunteering. My parents used to volunteer and Swana and Miami used to volunteer. So I saw that activism of volunteering and giving up the time of day in front of you from my and you know, from my elders. Um, they were always doing stuff that they loved sharing about Philistine with as little education they had, they still made an impact coming to America to an entire different country, not knowing a language. And here they are starting businesses and raising these strong women. You know, and having that in my life made me just roll that over.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

When I sit with my volunteers, I always remind them you know, these kids, these adults are depending on you. These parents come in here, they don't leave without making the most strongest and beautiful duats for you. They leave making the best du'ats for us. That's the best, that's the best payment, that's the best reward in all of that. I can sleep happy, knowing that I made these this child or this adult, because we have an adult program that Edge was part of. It's the adult dehabilitation for them and they learn basic life skills, you know. Some of our some of our adults come from a household sitting on the window all day. Sadly, this is what life is for these adults with special needs that have probably never had all the education that they were supposed to at least get. Or the, you know, if I didn't have it 25 years ago, imagine what these 45-year-olds are going through. You know, the majority of them don't have parents. They're living with siblings. So we have to be that answer. I couldn't just stay and having Nedjua so blessed of going to stores and living life. Look, I will tell you, Nedwa lives life. All she cares about is her food on her table and making people happy. She's the best. As long as she's she's eating, if she's in a babysitting room in a wedding, she's making sure every single child in that room is fed. That's okay. So she will stay with those waiters and waitresses until they bring some food to those kids. No, my cousin didn't eat. My cousin wants to cook it. This person wants to cook, and everybody's her cousin to her.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

I think, like you said, your your sitties created a leader within you, and you have been able to create a leader within Najwa Mashallah. Um, are there traditions that your Siddhis passed on to you that you want to make sure you pass on to your children?

SPEAKER_00 27:58

I mean, I love that we always advocated for ourselves. Me watching my aunts, my mother, this one and mammy advocate for themselves. Like they really didn't let a man tear her down with words or anything. They just they passed, they passed the negativity, they kept that positivity, and they just went with the flow. And and that's what worked for them. I really feel like in namal emalu binat, if your niyah is straight, it will happen. You have to have the passion, you have to have the niyah. And if you have the niyat, anything is possible. And that's what I was taught by them. I was like, well, she can do it, I can do it. You know, Martha Muhammad was like kind of my city. She was just, she was just so overpowered with me telling her what we're doing about the kids, without her even seeing what I was doing. I was just telling her a couple of stories here and there, what we were going through. And she was like, I love it. And you need to do this, and you need to live. Here she is, it's 80-something years old, and she she's still advising me what to do. She's still brainstorming, she's still working, she was still collaborating. Well, she was brainstorming with me until really late in the night with me and my husband telling us what kind of other things we can do. Yeah. And the impact we can do and how we can change our stigma in our communities. How we need to go find these people and tell them, listen, look at my daughter. You tell them, you tell them, you take Nadri, you say, look, they said that she wouldn't walk, and you use her as an example, and you say, Look at her, she's running. They used to say she's not gonna talk because she wouldn't have the best vocabulary. Here she is talking Arabian English better than all my other kids, and she's speaking in different dialects. You know? We had my mother come in and teach them how to do pickled olives at one of our mommy and me therapy days. And she talked about the olive tree picking. They taught them about olive trees that have the important essence of it in our culture and our land. They even learned how to do sign language, their first letter of their name in sign language, and we put that picture up on a like a branch of olive trees. They had their fingerprints as little olives. That's so cute. So we use we do use we do use our cities in our space.

SPEAKER_01 29:57

Hearing about your elders and the impact that they all had on your life really shows and conveys where you've gotten all these amazing characteristics, mashallah. It's clear how much they've influenced and shaped your life and who you are today, along with any journey, whether it's an advocacy, leadership, or in your own personal life, there are both challenges and deeply rewarding moments. I'd love to hear from you what has been one of the toughest moments in your advocacy journey. It could be like through Amana or through your role as a caregiver for Nedwa.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

I don't know if I could if I could even talk about this because I might cry when this happens. We had a really rough day at one of the mom support groups with us coming out in our safe space. And something had happened that made me like overthink like, am I really in this right place? Like, what am I doing here? I'm not a doctor. I should have never opened the space to do this. And I was almost giving up. I cried on the way coming home because I felt so bad of what happened at Amana. That day, early on, before we have our mom's group, we have the adult group go to their field trip so they don't hear what the moms say because they memorize everything we say. So we don't have our mom support group when the adults are here. They went on a field trip, they got into the Amana van and a bee went into the mana van. It was already a struggle just to put them in the seat belts and them not wanting to sit next to her and her not wanting to sit next to him. The bee comes in, I unstrap them, I shoe the bee out, and I put him back in the car. And the bee is over with. I get back into Amana, happens, you know, whatever happens, happens at Amana, and I have to hurry up and leave for my daughter's therapy that is 45 minutes away. As I'm driving across the river, there's like two bees on my mirror. And I was like, what is up with this bee? Why is he not leaving me alone? And I'm just like thinking in my head, okay, I must have a beehive. Well, I'm coming back from across the river two hours, three hours later, and this bee is on my mirror again. I was like, okay, there's definitely a beehive in my mirror. I get home, I called Khalima, my other daughter, and I was like, Can you just come get an edge why? I just want to cry it out and I don't want her to see me cry. I just need to have my cup of tea in my backyard, and I just don't want anybody around me. Can you come pick her up? And she came, she picked her up. I go sit in my backyard, and what's in what's on my cup? This bee. And I'm shooing this bee off my cup. And I was like, Can I be pleased, yeah bee? I became like a crazy person. I just started talking to the bee. I'm like, leave me alone. I just want to have my cup of tea and be in my moment. The bee winds up blowing into my shack. Okay, do I let it drown? And I was like, no, you know what? Struggling. I went, I poured it out, I put it on Snapchat. I had Surtan Nahal on as I was releasing this bee from my cup of tea. Okay. And one of my volunteers that happened to be with me that morning was like, What is up with the bees? You and the bees today. My husband comes home and I was like, honey, this bee has been following me all day from nine o'clock this morning. When he comes home, we go, we sit outside and we talk about our day. And he was like, You don't want to go sit outside? I was like, no, because this bee won't leave me alone. I'm just hoping the bee is not in the house. Um and I told him how rough my day was and stuff, and he was like, Well, why don't you Google what what that means about the bee? And I was like, What do you mean? He was like, it might have a meaning in Islam. Yeah, and it just me go look it up. What's the meaning of the bee following you all day? So I look it up and I'm just gonna summarize what it meant. It was saying that Rabna was trying to communicate with you that you are just like a bee, making the community better by you sharing the Poland, spreading that and building up your community to become better people and healthier. And you're you're getting you're collecting the communities, you're bringing it into a group together as one. And you're strengthening their bond. So not to give up and be aware of what you're doing and just keep going. Remember, I was really on like I was on the verge of like giving up, and I was like driving home. Like, what am I doing where I am?

SPEAKER_01 33:40

What made you feel that way to begin with? Why did you feel like you wanted to give up?

SPEAKER_00 33:45

Something happened at Amana with one of the parents, and it just it just rolled over to another parent. I mean, we always cry, we have our crying moments, and that day was just a really, really hard day, and I just felt like it was out of my control. And I couldn't help. Can't help with everything. And it was it was the first time that I felt I was defeated.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah. You work in a space that's so emotionally taxing, and I think it's so easy to get burnt out within those spaces because, like you said, you you can try your best to be the resource person, but then there's just things that are out of your control. But then there's things that happen to you, like this B story, where it's showing you this is the path that you were supposed to be on. There's literally no one better fit for this role than you.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

I was like, I can't give up now. My husband was praying when I was reading this, and I was hysterically crying. I was like a baby. I was like, I was crying, okay? And he he said that and he was like, What's wrong? I couldn't even read it because I kept them crying when I was reading it. And I was like, you have to read this. I felt like Rabbi just talked to me through a bee. I felt so honored that I had I had that moment. And I Rabbi just chose me that a bee came and talked to me, told me not to give up.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

It was definitely an affirming moment of telling you that you're on this right path to keep going. How do you find the motivation to keep going within the work that you do?

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Growth. When I see this growth happening, there was a moment when I was I when I used to go to these meetings and these um trainings, and I remember I was that parent where I was like, oh my God, I feel so dumb. Why have I not thought about that? I've been holding an edge well back all these years. Like, God, I'm so dumb. I felt that moment where I was like, I I was just so defeated. And now with this, with these trainings, we're teaching parents their rights, their advocacy rights, their um IEP trainings. We're teaching them the terminology that they should be knowing that should come straight to your brain when you're into an IEP meeting. When I tell you the outcome of their first times coming to these trainings, dude, they leave here becoming beasts. Like they leave in beast mode. We go to advocate for them in schools. We don't even have to get a word in. They're just on a role. Well, I'm just looking at them, I'm like, what did we create?

SPEAKER_01 35:58

I'm sure that's where the motivation comes from, but it's also super rewarding to and like tells you, like, yep, this is the path that I should be on. It's so powerful to hear about the people and the inner strength that keeps you going during tough times. But beyond personal resilience, community plays such a huge role in lifting us up, whether it's through shared experiences, cultural ties, or simply knowing you're not alone, having a strong community can make all the difference. How has the response been in the community to AMENA?

SPEAKER_00 36:26

Our vision is we aspire to hold local Muslim communities with disabilities as an amena, and we'll do its farat kifaya. It's a communal obligation to serve them through education, strong advocacy, and in addition to that, strong language, physical information, and service access. Our problem is with it's a man's world, right? Now, here we are, two Muslim women, strong Muslim women, because of course I have a partner. Her name is Rana Hattalla. And here we are in a man's world with strong women voicing, changing the schools, the local public school system. They're in our space now. We're teaching them what it is about Ramadan. We're teaching them about this language access that you need to provide for everyone because you need to always assume capability before you start thinking that they can't do something. Just because someone doesn't know a certain word doesn't mean they they can they're not capable or don't have the potential. We became more of a more than just a disability center, right? For our community. And it offered that safe space and resources for families and children. But we're also hosting a bunch of other community events and programs. The community is talking about Palestine, they're doing these great things, and you know, our kids are not part of that, which is sad because they deserve to be part of that. They're Palestinian too. We strongly feel that every child or adult with a disability should never be excluded from religious community or civil justice activities based on their disability. Our students are always given an opportunity to learn about Islam and share their feelings and to participate in events supporting Palestine. Also, a call the Far Kifaya. So we're taking off the communal obligation by us doing this. The community usually are supposed to be the ones taking care of these forgotten community members because they don't think that they're part of the community. When you tell them I needed a resource center, no, we don't have that problem in our community. Yes, we do. Just because you're not seeing them doesn't mean that we don't have it. You know? So we are feeling that Farat Kifayah. So we are taking that load off our community leaders by doing what we're doing. They're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Send them the bill.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Send them the bill later. Right?

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Send them the envelope.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

I mean, I'm I'm building my Akra. It's fine with me. No, inshallah, you'll be rewarded tenfold, inshallah. My home. We have a Saturday Islamic school. You know, misadjid all around the country. They really don't have a lot of programs for kids with special needs. That does not mean we don't teach them our basic morals of Islam. Our Islamic our Islamic school actually it's one-on-one. So every student has his person. They the volunteers love it. The kids get attached to them. They get to attach to get attached to every single volunteer. It's not just that one person because they have that that um rotation where you get to to you get to help someone else with a different exceptionality. And they love it, the kids love it, and they're really learning. You know, they're learning surahs. You know, everybody's on their own level. Somebody is learning surahs, someone is learning ayah, someone's just learning alif bad dad.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Yeah, and everyone is learning in the process. You know, the volunteers are learning empathy and growth and educating themselves on, you know, so many different areas of special needs. Whereas then, you know, your children that you're servicing or and your adults that you're servicing are learning the things that they are not learning within the masajid and these community resources because they're being left out.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

Why can't we teach our kids how to pray? We have one of the adults here that had never been taught to pray because his I guess his parents thought maybe he he couldn't pray. Well, guess what? We taught them how to pray. We tell them how you shouldn't be depending on your parents. You should only depend on Allah, and only Allah can change something that you want. But you have to ask. And you have to say stagfarullah when you say something bad or you do something ill. We meditate and they love the meditation. We talk about the negative energy and you know, releasing it and only bringing in positive energy. His mom came and told me she was like, Allah alaykum, I you don't understand the impact you made in my home. She was like, here he is, always throwing stuff when he was upset. And now when he gets upset, he just picks up this sujada. He was like, uh, I want to go pray. And she was like, but it's not asad. He was like, I'm going to pray. So she's like, he prays so many times during the day that we know when he's upset, that he picks up the sujada and he goes and talks to Rabna. What else do we want more than that? Why didn't they deserve to be have taught how to pray? Why can't they learn du'aats? Why can't they be taught all these beautiful du'ats that Rabna taught us?

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Yeah. Everyone deserves that connection with their religion, with their faith, with their spirituality and their identity. So I think that's so beautiful that you've been able to create that space for them to do so. But there's often a stigma in many in many communities around disability and special needs. How do you work to break those barriers and create culture of acceptance and support? And I mean, it's not even like just the fact that it's a Muslim community or Arab community, because it also sounds like it's impacted by you being in the South as well. So how do you kind of go about that?

SPEAKER_00 41:20

We motivate, we motivate everybody that comes in here. We strengthen everyone that comes in here, we make sure everyone's voice is heard. The passion you have matters. All I can do is make sure our next generation has it built in them. Yeah. Okay. So I make sure these volunteers are in here. They're getting the activism, they're getting that leadership, they're looking at leadership. Sometimes I have to just swallow a tough to make sure that I am that role model. And I just thank someone when they say something ignorant. We will have ignorant comments, you know, someone that's coming to just watch to see what's going on. Say comments like, What do I do to make me not have a kid like this? Like, is there a du'a to not have a kid that's not normal? Dude, like normal is nothing but a button on a washing machine. What are you talking about? It's wild. So that's wild. We change the narrative and we make sure that they see how blessed we are as parents and how blessed you are to have walked into this space.

SPEAKER_01 42:13

What advice would yeah, what advice would you give to parents raising children with special needs who might feel like very overwhelmed and alone?

SPEAKER_00 42:22

You are your child's number one advocate. You, your husband, everyone around them are going to be their one number one advocates. Those siblings of yours, as those siblings of your kid, are gonna be the bit the best advocates for them. You also want to teach your own child to be an advocate. My 17-year-old son, my only son, has um he has OCD and he has um sensory processing disorder. It doesn't mean he's not gonna be successful as an adult, but God, he's such a great advocate that at his last IEP meeting before he graduated, he said he graduated a year and a half earlier than what he was supposed to graduate. I didn't even have to say anything at his IEP meeting because he was on a roll. Even the office manager came into the IEP meeting and said, I need to stop this meeting and tell you what happened the other day. Your son had advocated for another student. He was another student that had no friends, and he was just so upset of seeing all these other classmates take his lunch and his lunch money. He stood up for him, and this kid went home and told his mom and his mother made it a point to come to the office and say, I need to meet this kid. And this kid, his name is Muhammad. Well, listen, my kid is the only Muhammad in that entire school. For my kid to be that advocate and that special person and his name being Muhammad meant the world to me because I was like, You just put a new definition on the name Muhammad. Muhammad, you should be so proud of yourself. They're the only kids that are Muslims in their entire school. They're they're breaking these barriers that they put up for us.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yeah. For parents who are out there who are raising special needs children, there is no bar, there is no limit. And I think you are like living proof of that, and you've

SPEAKER_00 44:00

I wish I could just show people Najwa. I wish I could just hold her. Like, like your like your grandmother said, I wish I could just hold Najwa of the before and after and show you what she was and what she became. She's such a leader. She's such an inspiration to everybody around her. She really is.

SPEAKER_01 44:13

Yeah, she is, mashallah. She's a gift, mashallah, to the whole community. For those listening who may not have direct experience with family members who have special needs, what are some ways they can be better allies and support families in their communities?

SPEAKER_00 44:27

Be there for the moms, be there for the dads. We have a this big um thing with men's ego in our community, in our culture, that the men can't cross. Even though you know that there's something going on with your child, for a doctor to finally say your child has autism, I mean, it breaks you down. You fall hard enough to the floor where you have no place else to go but to stand up. You're pushed back, you're pushed back until you hit that wall and you have to stand on your two feet because you have no other option. I have to be that patient person with her. And for them to see that, just me being that role model, okay, even without, you know how they say our dawah is not taught by words. It's taught by your character. If I can be that character without me even saying anything to these non-Muslims, let alone Muslims, okay, that alone in itself is gonna make an impact. So when they see that you're you're being this calm with this child that's about to cross the street, or this child that's like screaming bloody murder because he's overly stimulated in a restaurant, but God, we're making the best of it. And I'm loving every minute of it, every second of it. As much as it does hold us back, it's opened so many other doors that we didn't know we had. You know, and I didn't get to finish school. Every time I tried to do something, I tried to try to go in an accounting, steered me to take care of Nietzsche. I went back to school when she, you know, got into high school, she stopped getting Esthic, and I was like, okay, I'm going into my interior design school. That's it. I started it, finished halfway, my father-in-law had a stroke. He was living with me at the time, and my hat, my, my world had to go on a pause for a little bit. Well, guess what? Years down the line, we started a man and who designed the place. All these vibes that people are talking about was from the inspiration that I had from my interior designing classes that I had to call off. So it's like every time I had to veer a direction, I I got stopped. And I got stuck with my daughter not going being able to go to a dayhab because here she was with a 55-year-old guy. And my daughter's sitting there playing cards. Yes, she's having the time of her life. She's learning about money and she loves money, she loves business. She's her father's daughter, definitely. It felt so painful for me to see her sitting there with a 55-year-old guy teaching her about money when I could do that myself with an Islamic environment. You know, I'm like, did you did you solely Ned Joan? She's like, No, they don't have salah clothes here.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

Our kids deserve spaces where they can let their identity blossom, and there shouldn't be those limits within our own community and our own identities as well. I love that you used the inspiration from your sitties, your elders, seeing a problem and not waiting around for anyone to fix it. You saw the problem within your community and you went ahead and you created a mana and you empowered so many other people. So we like to end kind of closing the circle that we opened with in the beginning. If like your Siddhi was here with us today, and like I said, you could pick an elder that you considered a Siddhi. So if they were here with us today, being a part of our conversation, drinking their shy, what would be the thing that they are most proud of?

SPEAKER_00 47:26

I think they would be proud that I didn't give up and I didn't let I really didn't do what the the older generation would have done, which was to say she's somebody Lip Kadafuddar, and here she is, making an impact on everyone that meets her, selling people keychains of Philistine colors, and she's like, This is the colors of my flag. Palestine. Do you know where Palestine is? I love her.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

I'm so proud of you, and I'm so proud of Bedwa. And I know my city, you know, your Martani. She was so proud of me. Very, very proud of you.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

I know you know how proud she was of you. I wish she would have got to see it in perfect because I was really looking forward to her to come down this summer. I know she's so proud of you, and we all are so proud of you, and everything that you did. Those of you around other people with special needs, kids with special needs, or any, just be that tool. Be that person that that steps in. Don't just be a bystander, you know. Try to help her with her other kids. Try to help her just, you know, just tell her I've been there. Words of encouragement. That's all they need. That's it. Just be that person. Rabna use you to be around that person. Be that, be that positive aura. And don't be that bystander. That's all I can say.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

Your work with Amana is not just about providing services, it's about changing mindsets, breaking barriers, and creating a community where every individual is valued and supported. And your impact is truly immeasurable, mashallah. Um, thank you seriously so much for sharing your story and your infectious joy and your heart with us today. Thank you for listening to this episode of Siddhi Stories. What an incredible conversation with Raweda. Her journey is a true testament to the power of faith, resilience, and the impact one person can have when they decide to create change. I hope her story inspires you to push past limitations, advocate for others, and build more inclusive spaces in your own communities. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with a friend, leave a rating and review, and tag us on social media at cithies.stories. And don't forget to check out Amana and the incredible work they are doing. Their website and Instagram handle are in the episode description. Thank you for being a part of the Cithies Stories community. Stay tuned for a really personal bonus midseason episode coming up next. Until next time, stay rooted, stay resilient, and keep sharing your stories.