Na'ilah Amaru: A Role Model Of Serving The Nation

 Always remember your "why" - it's the North Star that will lead you home and will give you purpose on the dark days.  Na'ilah Amaru  

Army-veteran Na’ilah Amaru’s 20 years of career contradicts the common belief that it is difficult to find your place back in society after serving the country in the military. In fact, Na’ilah is a wonderful role model for all of us, women and men alike, showing what we all can accomplish while also not forgetting where we came from.

1. Dismantling systems of oppression

Na’ilah has been pursuing inclusivity and diversity her whole career so far. It is safe to say that, the topic being on top of her experience list, she will continue to reach balance in many fields. According to her, the journey towards racial equity and social justice is uncomfortable. Yet, she never felt alone, as there are many others like her, following a ‘North Star’ for this great goal.

As an advocacy and policy strategist, Na’ilah’s day job is to oversee and consult on community-building non-governmental, and non-profit organizations getting the right funding. This challenge of this landscape mainly forms around budgeting decisions potentially biased by racial and social imbalances. Na’ilah’s mission is to smooth out the potential misalignments between the governmental investments and the community needs, focusing on black and brown supporting organizations.

As an advocacy and policy strategist, Na’ilah’s day job is to oversee and consult on community-building non-governmental, and non-profit organizations getting the right funding. This challenge of this landscape mainly forms around budgeting decisions potentially biased by racial and social imbalances. Na’ilah’s mission is to smooth out the potential misalignments between the governmental investments and the community needs, focusing on black and brown supporting organizations.

2. Power is communal 

Na’ilah offers a tremendous and uncommon interpretation of political power that overwrites our experience of its masculine, supremacy-like behavior. She firmly believes in the power of the people and supports communities and individuals to stand up for themselves. Power is in the collaboration, ‘power is us working together to achieve things that we need to get as a community - to begin building and healing.’ She is an advocate of win-win situations, and to let go of the winner takes all attitude of present-day politics.

Women’s History Month is about what we can learn from our role models: a key takeaway from Na’ilah Amaru is the approach to how she handles negotiations. She is a firm believer in collecting the aspects that the participants can all agree on and starts building the final agreement from there onward, instead of kicking off the meeting immediately with differences in mind. This incredible and open mindset helped her become one of the most successful experts in her field and among women in leadership roles.

3. Women in partnership

Na’ilah sees the key factor in developing the communities in women partnering with each other and putting the necessary work and energy together. ‘We need to do the work to make life easier for the generations behind us - and we couldn’t agree more with Na’ilah. She has a career in civic leadership for more than 20 years now, and during that time, she developed a strong voice - but not simply for herself but also for all the communities and women in business.

To empower people around her, she uses her voice in-person in the Democratic National Committee’s Young Professional Leadership Council, participates as a guest speaker on the Brown Girls Guide to Politics podcast, and supports and trains women to become public office workers.

She is a true role-model showing the potential that is within all of us.