Hadiya Afzal serves as part of FCNL’s strategic advocacy team as the diaspora engagement and partnerships organizer. Her responsibilities include coordinating the Diaspora Organizer Gathering to train cohorts of diaspora advocates, traveling to support subsequent deep organizing efforts in diaspora communities across the United States, and elevating impacted voices in Congressional debate to advance peacebuilding efforts instead of war-making.
Hadiya grew up in the Chicago area and earned her B.A. in Political Science with honors from DePaul University in Chicago, IL.
Hadiya has consistently focused on intersectional organizing for justice in her community throughout university and beyond. This work started in 2017 with Palenque LSNA’s fair housing campaign and two campaigns for the local County Board in DuPage County, IL. In 2019, Hadiya spent time on Capitol Hill and abroad in Brussel’s European Parliament, focusing on climate policy and immigrant justice. Since 2020, she has worked at nonprofits to advance economic justice, voting accessibility, and, most significantly, anti-militarist U.S. foreign policy advocacy. Her broad, intersectional approach to country-based issues informed her most recent successful roles at Just Foreign Policy and Unfreeze Afghanistan. Hadiya began working at FCNL in July 2023.
Hadiya’s free time is dedicated to spending sunny days at Lake Michigan, playing with her two cats, and making her way through the endless stack of nonfiction books on her shelf.