Biography

Namira Islam (also known as Namira Islam Anani) is a descendent of liberation fighters from Bengal and the eldest daughter of genocide survivors and community builders. She integrates the precision of a lawyer, the imagination of a graphic designer, and the hope of a gardener in her work in human rights education, experience design, and liberatory coaching. She is the founder and CEO of Nia Weaving, a creative studio and design consultancy that threads intention into movements, moments, and environments.

From the Detroit side of Wawiiyaatanong, Namira brings experience in public interest law, visual storytelling, faith-based organizing, and disability justice. Her work is informed by drafting international law in The Hague, providing legal aid during the Flint Water Crisis, co-founding a nonprofit via Twitter, leading communications for an award-winning restaurant, and nearly twenty years of social change leadership while living with chronic pain. Guided by a philosophy of opening narrow doors and widening them for others, she centers creativity, cultural knowledge, and collective healing to interrupt systems of dehumanization and support sustainable futures for all living beings.

Namira has designed and fundraised for meaningful causes since 2007. She is a certified coach through Coaching for Healing, Justice, and Liberation. She is an alumna of the University of Michigan and Michigan State University College of Law. Namira received the University of Michigan’s Tapestry Award for intercultural leadership in 2010 and the El-Hibri Foundation’s Young Leader Award for her work in American Muslim communities in 2016. Her writing has appeared in academic journals as well as popular media, and she has delivered lectures and workshops nationally and internationally, including at Harvard Divinity School and the Minidoka Pilgrimage.