Nominated by
Yolanda Smith
March 20, 2018
Hanif has been answering the call of people in need for over 30 years, as a nurse and champion for the underprivileged. She cares for the homeless and uninsured through a variety of community initiatives. When the city canceled nurses contracts in inner-city schools, she volunteered to provide physicals so students could stay in school, and off the streets. She also provides physicals for children with special needs so they can participate in the Special Olympics. Hanif founded “Healthy Solutions,” clinic that serves the needy of all faiths. As part of her “Love Thy Neighbor” initiative, she coordinates a back-to-school health fair, a local food pantry and “Chili Bowl Sunday,” a 20-year tradition where Hanif and her volunteers serve chili and distribute clothes to the homeless. During the riots in Baltimore, Hanif helped those who slipped through the headlines. A mother and her 7-year-old special needs son watched their house burn down when a neighboring business was torched. Hanif prepared care packages with food and store gift cards for this homeless mother. She states, “The most common inaccuracy regarding homelessness is that it will never happen to me.”
I came to know of Asma Inge-Hanif when seeking help for a refugee Muslim woman whom had been turned away by everyone else and was told that she qualified for no help or assistance was homeless and was desperately in need of someone to help. I was greatly impressed by her unselfish willingness to help someone in need eventhough she herself has been ignored in receiving the financial support to do the work which she is doing. Society has not been kind to her.
She is a graduate of Howard University, and the Medical University of South Carolina and is a Advanced Nurse Practitioner. In 1987 she established Al Nisaa, as a wholistic Health, Education and Social Services organization, in order to provide health services for the underserved and uninsured women and children. Asma Hanif has cared for the homeless, refugees, trafficking victims and women victims of domestic violence for over 30 years - long before those whom are now stating that they care ever did. Believing that every man, woman and child has a right to receive quality care in a dignified manner, and to be assisted in the achievement of optimal health and well-being, regardless of race, creed, or socio-economic level. The motivation for her organization was originally as a response to her grandmother dying from a preventable condition but lacking health care. However, as a result of her service as a female health Nurse-Practitioner, she also discovered/uncovered a large number of women experiencing homelessness and violence in their lives. Witnessing the stigma’s associated with violence and rape, in 2007 she opened her home to shelter homeless Muslim women victims of Domestic Violence, not as a discriminatory effort but to counteract the same prejudices still in existence and being highlighted in social media of today; thus only to fulfill an unmet need to assist them as they struggle to achieve their self-esteem, their self-worth and their self-sufficiency. She receives no government money, surviving solely from the kindness of strangers. Unable to afford both, she gave up having a personal home for herself because it was the only way to continue serving others.