Featured, Roddenberry Fellowship
Meet A Roddenberry Fellow
Alia Salem
July 12, 2019
Meet Alia, a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow
Alia Salem is the Founder and President of FACE (Facing Abuse in Community Environments). Her professional background is in organizational development, community organizing, and communications with a particular focus on the intersections of institutionalized racism and the push towards an equitable pluralistic society.
Facing Abuse in Community Environments (FACE) was formed to address the accountability gap for abusive, unethical, and at times criminal, conduct of imams, scholars, and community leaders. FACE recognizes that when the harms to individuals and the community continue to be concealed, a pattern emerges enabling predators to manipulate a greater number of vulnerable people.
“Since abuse of any kind is also expressly forbidden from an Islamic and secular perspective there is a moral imperative for Muslims to rid their community of corrupt leaders. People who have been abused often lose their faith when a religious leader is the one abusing so a path to help them heal by having the issue addressed by people who share the faith and have the best interests of the community at heart is essential. Additionally, the Muslim community, in particular, has been repetitively marginalized and targeted under the auspices of national security. This has led to any subject concerning Muslims being weaponized against them making it an imperative that justice-minded individuals within the community grapple and address this issue.”
During the 2019 Fellowship
Facing Abuse in Community Environments (FACE) is a female and survivor-led organization that was formed to address the accountability gap for abusive, unethical, and at times criminal, conduct of imams, scholars, and community leaders. FACE recognizes that when the harms to individuals and the community continue to be concealed, a pattern emerges enabling predators to manipulate a greater number of vulnerable people. People who have been abused often lose their faith when a religious leader is the one abusing. A path to help them heal by having the issue addressed by people who share the faith, and have the best interests of the community at heart, is essential.
“It is my desire to build out this process to be a fully functioning, accredited, victim-centered, trauma-informed, one-stop-shop institution that helps provide people an avenue of redress and education, outside their religious institution, when a leader has abused their positions of power. I hope to see it grow to cross faith lines and be offered as a solution to any community grappling with this issue. Providing a path to wholeness for survivors is also essential to creating safe spaces that empower Muslims and beyond to help heal is paramount going forward.”
How to get involved:
The most important resource we need right now is funding or access to funders. That is typical for a non-profit to say but in this case, it’s true. In order for us to handle our massive caseload, we have to hire new people. The only way to do that is with funds. Our organization is in place, our process is in place. Now I just need smart people with the skills or the ability to be trained to join us in this ground-breaking work!
Donate: https://facetogether.org/donate/
Follow/Share: Support Alia and FACE on social media:
Facebook: @facingabuse Twitter: @facingabuse
Learn more about Alia and FACE: https://facetogether.org/
