Join us for a conversation and a sweet treat on Tuesday, December 4th at 9pm in Brookdale's East Lounge. Our distinguished guest will be Fatima Shama.

Fatima is a born and raised New Yorker who has worked with and for children and families in NYC her entire career. With over twenty years of experience in the public sector, Fatima has worked in policy and advocacy roles in health and human services, education, workforce development, economic development and human rights. New York City’s immigrant communities and the conversation of immigration has been a consistent theme throughout her personal and professional life.

Fatima started her career in Brooklyn with the Arab-American Family Support Center, moving on to the Bronx to work with WHEDCo, the Women's Housing Development Corporation, and then worked with the community development organization CAMBA, leading Brooklyn’s first public health consortium, the Greater Brooklyn Health Coalition.

In 2006 Fatima joined the Bloomberg Administration as a public health policy advisor working on issues of literacy and access to health care. She then moved to the education policy team and was subsequently named the Senior Policy Advisor on Education to Mayor Bloomberg and Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott.

In 2009, Mayor Bloomberg appointed Fatima to serve as NYC’s Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs and she was charged with creating a robust integration strategy on the economic, social and civic opportunities for immigrant New Yorkers. Fatima created several landmark initiatives during her role as commissioner including a nationally regarded and modeled citizenship initiative with parents of students in NYC schools. Fatima went on to help model the work accomplished in NYC nationally and globally and has served as a national leader on the role of municipal governments on immigrant integration. She created the Blueprints for Immigrant Integration, a series of 12 ‘how to’ guides outlining strategies for municipalities on immigrant integration and the blueprints have been used in over 30 cities nationally and globally including Houston, Los Angeles, Chicago, Memphis, Amsterdam, Netherlands and Florence, Italy.

After the Bloomberg Administration, in 2014, Fatima joined the senior team at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, and in July of 2015 became the Executive Director of The Fresh Air Fund, where she has returned to working with and for children and families from across New York City. Fatima’s work at The Fresh Air Fund is focused on youth development with intersections on public health and education by introducing children to the outdoors and helping introduce a journey of enrichment through camping, a host-family exchange program, and year-round academic programming.

Born in the Bronx to her Brazilian-Catholic mother and Palestinian-Muslim father, Fatima earned a BA from Binghamton University and her MPA from Baruch College's School of Public Affairs Executive Program. She attended Temple University’s School of Law and also completed a management program at the Institute for Not-for-Profit Management at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business. Fatima serves as a Trustee on the board of the New York Foundation, and serves on the Boards of Coro Leadership New York and the New York Immigration Coalition. She is a firm believer that one must be the change they want to see in this world.

RSVP HERE!