Sandhya teaches tenant's rights at the Brooklyn Arab American Friendship Center
This year, we began serving at the Brooklyn Arab American Friendship Center in Bay Ridge. The center offers English language classes and help with citizenship tests for Arab-speaking, predominantly Muslim women. During our last class in Bay Ridge, teaching this lovely group of Arab-American women about tenant’s rights in NYC, a young high school girl used my camera to take a few photographs for me. Understanding there were certain cultural sensitivities, I assured the women that we wouldn’t show their faces to anyone, only the backs of their heads. Fadia, the director of the program, urged me to keep my word. “If their family members see them, they could come and kill them.” She was not joking. And I believed her. Then it really began to sink in to me, what a remarkable community Fadia has created for my new Muslim friends.
Fadia Farag, Exec. Director of the Brooklyn Arab American Friendship Center, with Sandhya after class
In a world where letting your face be seen, even by accident, could lead to your death, how carefully must you consider who you are willing to trust? And yet, Fadia’s center attracts many Muslim women every week to learn English and receive study help for their citizenship tests. They freely talk with Fadia, and others who like me who are not Muslim, welcoming our friendship and counsel. I don’t believe I’ve ever been covered with kisses after a training until the first time I went to visit the center. One woman insisted I take her scarf as a gift! So when I explained that their pictures were being taken, and we would protect them from exposure, not one woman left. More than anything, it seems that the linguistic isolation, rather than cultural, has created barriers around them, barriers to their knowledge about the law. They are eager to learn this year as we visit on a monthly basis. We are priviledged to have their trust, to bring other Brooklyn Jubilee volunteers to teach about housing and other areas of the law.