IMAN In the Media: Conversation, Impact, Change
Over the last few weeks, IMAN’s staff, leadership and work were featured prominently in news stories and interviews on well-known national media outlets such as American Public Media, National Public Radio (NPR), The Washington Post, Colorlines, and HuffPost Live. We are always excited and thankful for such high profile coverage and reporting of our work, only because it represents unique opportunities for bringing the communities we work with, and the issues we work on, to the center of the nation’s public conversation and imagination.
In the last week of January, Executive Director Rami Nashashibi was Krista Tippett’s guest on her hour-long weekly program, On Being. A Public Radio program on religion and spirituality, On Being is heard on NPR stations across the country.
In February, Nashashibi was interviewed by NPR’s Jacki Lyden for a segment, titled From The Inner City: Leading A New Generation Of Muslim Americans, on the popular news program All Things Considered.
Youth Director, Shamar Hemphill, was featured on a panel discussion on HuffPost Live, titled Booze N The Hood, about the presence of liquor stores, and their possible connection to violence, in poor communities of color. This was in recognition of the related work that IMAN has been doing on the ground with its Muslim Run campaign over the last few years.
Security Officer, Bilaal Evans, was featured in a story, titled Dispatch from Chicago: Stop the Violence…But How?, by Jamilah King in Colorlines magazine. The story takes a deeper and nuanced look at urban violence, its causes and possible solutions. Evans’ story is portrayed as representative of those who “aren’t just working to stop conflicts, but also trying to change people’s norms and behaviors in the process by showing that there are alternatives to violence.”
Finally, IMAN, its work, and its model of civic and social engagement were at the center of a story, titled Chicago is ground zero in U.S. Muslim renaissance, by Monique Parsons in The Washington Post. It presents IMAN’s work, such as the free health clinic, at the vanguard of a serious commitment by sections of American Muslims to live their faith through service to their communities.
We would like to thank all these media organizations and individual journalists – Krista Tippett, Jacki Lyden, Jamilah King, and Monique Parsons – for bringing IMAN, our work and the communities we serve to national attention. We sincerely hope that such attention can lead to greater conversation, increasing impact and, finally, positive change in the lived reality of our communities.