I want to provide young women of color a comfortable space where they can go to have an open conversation regarding their questions and worries. I want to provide them genuine support and help empower young women to realize our strength and ability to make ourselves and our communities better.

Altaf, 24, is an online peer educator with MySistahs

As a proud Iraqi, Iranian, Canadian, and Californian Muslim feminist woman, I've had to negotiate a multiplicity of identities. I've mostly found it frustrating that there are so few voices in the mainstream representing mine, or the perspective of other women of color in general--woman who, like me, belong to multiple communities. If stories do exist, they tend to be one-dimensional and misleading.

When it comes to issues of sexual and reproductive health specially, my personal experiences have opened my eyes to how a closed or judgmental environment--or one where you don't hear your story validated--can make it difficult to discuss or overcome negative sexual experiences, feeding into shame, guilt, abuse, denial, and frustration.

It is because of all these experiences that I am passionate about youth and sexual health, and making a difference in the life of my peers. Currently, I am a second year medical student at Harvard Medical School. I've been active in issues of refugee, immigrant, and women's health, ultimately hoping to use health care as a tool for social justice and advocacy.

My involvements have included being an AMSA National Sexual Health Scholar for the 2009-2010 year, leading a student group providing social services to refugee families in Boston, and helping to produce the school's Vagina Monologues performance. Most recently, I finished a summer research project in a Boston community health center assessing barriers to breast cancer screening among Arab refugee women.

I want to provide young women of color a comfortable space where they can go to have an open conversation regarding their questions and worries.  I want to provide them genuine support and help empower young women to realize our strength and ability to make ourselves and our communities better.  

As June Jordan once wrote, “Most people in this country think that they are wrong, and most people in this country think that they have no power. And I think the first and most important thing for any of us who wants to change that is to say that’s not the case.  And just insist on that.”  I’m excited to be a MySistahs mentor and to help foster this power and energy in all of us!