A: One small thing I\u2019ve done since I’ve been on council is have resolutions to recognize Ramadan and Eid as holidays. That’ s something that has never been done in our town, you know, just letting people know there are Muslims that live in our town and in our surrounding areas. And these are holidays that they celebrate.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Q: What advice would you give to young Muslims who are interested in getting involved in politics or community organizing, and how can they best make a difference in their communities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nA: I would say don’t hesitate to get involved. Take baby steps, get yourself known. Whether it’s working or helping an elected official whose values align with yours get elected by canvassing for them. Start early and start at the basic grassroots level. Let people see the dedication, let people see who you are, and then eventually you can grow into higher elected positions. Look into your local community, find out who the members of your party are, and ask what you can do to help them.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
“Local politics affect us more on a daily basis than national politics. We are in charge of if your taxes get raised or not and when your garbage gets picked up, if potholes are filled or not. I would urge anybody interested to reach out to me and to other Muslim elected officials and talk to them to see if you can help them in any way. But the first step is just to put yourself out there whether it’s a big step or small.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
– Fozia Janjua<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fozia Janjua is a first generation Pakistani American born and raised in San Francisco, California. Fozia is passionate about building strong communities through mentorship and service. She began her lifetime of volunteerism at a young age, and co-founded a non-profit, Community SJP, for mutual aid. She is married to her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2017,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2014"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2045,"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2014\/revisions\/2045"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/njmvp.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}