Shahana Hanif

Shahana Hanif is a Councilwoman who represents the 39th Council District, our Main Site Building is in her district. Born and raised in Kensington, Brooklyn District 39 to Bangladeshi immigrant parents, Shahana is a product of NYCDOE public schools system. She is also a graduate of Brooklyn College.

Shahana has spent her life fighting for working-class families and a city rooted in care, equity, and justice for all. Her diagnosis at 17 with Lupus, an incurable chronic illness, and her subsequent experiences navigating the costly, nebulous healthcare system and inaccessible city were the catalysts for her organizing and commitment to public service.

Before being elected to the City Council, Shahana served as the Director of Organizing and Community Engagement in former District 39 Councilmember Brad Lander’s office where she led grassroots initiatives like Participatory Budgeting, a process that gives New Yorkers a say in how to spend City dollars in their neighborhoods. She has also served as a tenants rights organizer, a gender justice organizer, and an interfaith organizer.

In the November 2021 election, Shahana was one of two history-making South Asian candidates to win their election. Shahana Hanif won her race, making her the first Muslim woman and the first Bangladeshi American elected to the New York City Council and the first woman to represent the 39th district. Shahana’s activism is well-known in her community, and all over Brooklyn and New York City.

She is known for her work fighting against domestic violence, she helped a young Bangladeshi woman escape from an abusive forced marriage to safety in a culturally-aware shelter. Shahana also used her tweets during protests at the Metropolitan Detention Center to draw the attention of over 4.6 million people to the inmates awaiting trial who were desperately in need of assistance because the jail had no heat and no power.

She will bring our movement’s work for transformational change and a feminist, anti-racist city to City Hall. “We deserve a city that protects its most vulnerable, a city that has equitable education, a city invested in climate solutions that are local and driven by communities, a city where our immigrant neighbors feel at home and heard and safe. This work requires all of us to keep showing up even though the election is over.”