Ohio Immigrant Alliance is excited to announce that our Organizing Director, Maryam Sy, was honored with the Women’s Community Catalyst Award from We Are All America!
About the award: According to We Are All America, “the Women’s Community Catalyst Award (WCCA) was created to honor and uplift the most vital, yet most overlooked members of the immigration movement: immigrant and refugee women working for their communities at the grassroots level. They are the foundation of our fight for justice, ensuring their communities receive support while also organizing and advocating for meaningful change.”
About Maryam: Based in Cleveland Heights, Maryam is Organizing Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and a Fulani and Wolof language expert. According to the award committee, Maryam’s interviews with 250 people who were deported during the first Trump administration “became the foundation for the #ReuniteUS project and the book Broken Hope, amplifying the voices of deported individuals and helping them advocate for a chance to reunite with their families.” The committee also cited her work exposing “systemic language barriers in U.S. immigration courts, documenting cases where incorrect dialects were used, leading to miscommunications with life-altering consequences,” and leadership in OHIA’s “Ohio Is Home” resource and training project.
The Ohio Immigrant Alliance is proud of Maryam’s leadership and impact on Ohio and the national pro-immigration movement. We look forward to seeing what else she has in store for 2025 and beyond!
Also receiving this honor were Eréndira (Ere) Rendón of Chicago and Fereshteh Ganjavi , founder and Executive Director of Elena’s Light. Read about these amazing leaders here!