I saw her last November when Mukhtara Mai was at Cooper Union. She’s doing an amazing thing, and may she continue to be successful :k:
Robina Niaz, founder of the Turning Point for Women and Families, a Jamaica, Queens group dedicated to empowering Muslim women and children, says a single statistic shows one thing women of all faiths have in common. Every nine seconds, a woman is the victim of domestic violence in this country.
“When people ask me if domestic violence is a problem in the Muslim community, I tell them domestic violence is a problem in every community,” Niaz said. “A woman is victimized every nine seconds. Some of them are Muslim; some of them aren’t.” No matter who the victim is, Niaz said, "a society can never be free of violence if our homes are violent. “We must call it what it is,” she said. “Domestic violence is wrong under Islam and any other standard you want to apply.”
Niaz is the group’s only fulltime employee. She estimates she helps about 20 women and a like number of teenagers each year. Niaz said she hopes to soon expand her services to offer internships that would train non-Muslim social workers who serve the Muslim community.
She worked for several Queens agencies, including the domestic violence unit at Jamaica Hospital, where she was the first South Asian counselor on staff.
Speaking four South Asian languages - Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi and Bengali - Niaz was able to bridge cultural lines and offer help to people from a variety of cultures.
“I was able to build up my clientele,” she said. "When I left, they replaced me with another South Asian, which shows that the services were needed.
“People often do not appreciate how difficult it is to be an immigrant,” she said. “Even a plant that has been uprooted and replanted takes a while to get used to its new soil.”
That’s one reason why, speaking at a gathering of social workers last month, Niaz urged them to include the star and crescent symbols in public holiday displays as a way of including Muslims in the observance.
“Don’t wait for your patients to come forward and ask why it is missing,” she said. It’s also a good idea not to organize events on Friday evenings as that conflicts with when Muslims pray, she said.
“Don’t invite me to have dinner with you at 6 o’clock during Ramadan when I can’t break my fast until 6:30.”
The devastation of Sept. 11, 2001, “drastically changed” the lives of Muslim New Yorkers, she said. In an article titled “Realities on the Ground For Muslim New Yorkers Five Years After 9/11,” Niaz said the mistrust and suspicions aimed at Muslims since the attacks helped her better empathize with other groups, like the Jews, Irish, African-Americans and Hispanics, and what they often have to deal with in this country.
Turning Point will host a Voices of Hope and Strength event, which will include a meal to break the daily fasts mandated during Ramadan, at 5:30 p.m. on Oct. 19 at the Queens Museum of Art, Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
http://www.nydailynews.com/boroughs/story/458835p-386074c.html