Who We Are
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Poligon Education Fund (Poligon) is a national, non-profit organization that launched in January 2017 to increase American Muslim participation on Capitol Hill.
At the time, anti-Muslim sentiment in the public and private spheres had reached its highest levels since 9/11. Children were being bullied in schools by both teachers and peers, American Muslims' faced daily public harassment, and anti-shariah legislation, passed and pending in states around the country, threatened to eliminate fundamental rights of Muslims to pray, fast, and give charity as prescribed by their faith. To make matters worse, after a contentious Presidential election that vilified Islam and Muslims, President Trump issued travel ban barring Muslims from entering the U.S. A 2019 ISPU study commissioned by Poligon and other Muslim civic engagement groups showed that only 17% of American Muslims had contacted their Members of Congress in the last year, the lowest of all faith groups. This lack of participation creates missed opportunities that not only negatively affect our community, but also impede pluralism and limit our individual and collective power. At Poligon, we seek to create an America where Muslims and allies feel empowered to make their voices heard in the halls of Congress, and their representatives actively seek their input in the policy making process. Poligon seeks to amplify Muslim voices in Congress in two ways:
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Our History
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The story of Poligon began in late 2014, when Founder Wardah Khalid accepted a fellowship with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby in the public interest. Quakers are a Christian group of less than 75,000 in the U.S., yet they actively and effectively lobby and educate Congress, the administration, and public on a host of foreign and domestic policies. Wardah's goal was to create something similar for Muslims in the U.S., which number anywhere from 3-8 million.
After learning the ropes, Wardah began training community groups on how to engage with their elected officials through town halls, office visits, and phone calls. (Those trainings would become the material Poligon utilized to train thousands of Muslims and allies across the country). In late 2015, Wardah put together a team of accomplished professionals in D.C. including Tamim Chowdhury, Afif Rahman, and Rahfin Faruk, to help bring her vision to life. Poligon Education Fund launched in January 2017 and has continued to work since then to amplify American Muslim voices in Congress. |
