Cultivating Community
One Neighborhood At A Time
Meet The Team
Naimah Sharif
Founder/Executive Director
Naimah Sharif is an event professional, connector, and the founder of NLife. Naimah has always been action and solution oriented with a strong passion for bringing people together for positive causes.
Naimah earned her degree in Urban Arts Production from Coppin State University, and started her first business producing and promoting small concerts and art-based events. After attaining a certificate for event management from George Washington Universtiy, she transitioned into corporate event planning and fundraising for non-profits. Naimah has planned for many local companies and organizations including Backyard Basecamp, The Creative Nomads, Bmore Empowered, and Henna Sooq.
Compassion and a desire to “rebuild the village” led Naimah to found NLife. Under her leadership, NLife has produced a plethora of community based programs and events including free swim lessons, summer camps, outdoor movie nights, neighborhood clean-ups, and a series of life skills workshops and community initiatives.
As AOC recently stated, “ community and collective good is our best shot through our greatest challenges”.
Naimah received the Joe Mann Black Wall Street Award to acknowledge her work as a young entrepreneur and the Aspen Intitute’s Weaver Award for her community work.
When Naimah isn’t working with NLife and event planning, she’s providing academic support for students in Baltimore City Public Schools. She also enjoys kayaking, biking, camping, concerts and spending quality time with family.
Dr Ammar Hanif
Chairman
Ammar Hanif, Ph.D. holds a doctorate in Environmental Science from University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He currently works at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration headquarters in Silver Spring, MD tackling issues surrounding harmful algal blooms and ecosystem health. Dr. Hanif has displayed a lifelong commitment to education, environmental justice, and healthy communities. One of his goals is to help connect people to their natural environment, especially in underrepresented communities. He has done this for NLife by assisting with the nature trails activity during the Summer Boys Camp. Dr. Hanif brings many years of community activism to NLife as he has been a member of the Anne Arundel County Citizen’s Environmental Commission where he aided in developing several environmental policies. Furthermore, he has worked with masjids to develop Creation Care committees. Dr. Hanif lives in Odenton with his wife and children. When he is not working he can be found doing any number of outdoor activities such as diving, running, hiking, fishing, or gardening.
Queen Phe
Secretary & Program Director
A Queen in her own right, a proud hippie at heart, Queen Phe sees motherhood as her guiding light, and she is invested in the mental health and awareness of children and communities. As NLife’s Program Director and Board Secretary, she gets to be hands on in helping to build connections between neighbors in their neighborhoods. When she’s not working with NLife, Queen Phe is a Certified Yoga Instructor, and Meditation Coach. She specializes in working with children and is able to fulfill her dream of bringing peace, balance, healing and love to the world, one child at a time. Coming directly to your neighborhoods, she is committed to giving youth and their families ways to access their own inner light. As a homeschool mom, she’s always working with children from teaching, to leading group hikes, meditations and yoga instruction. Queen Phe also specializes in Ayurveda and Chair Yoga. Working with others to build something beautiful is one of her biggest passions.
Majida Abdulillaha
Treasurer
Majida Abdulillaha is known by her community for being very passionate and supportive. She received her BA in Corporate Communications from University of Baltimore and is currently a management professional with 16 years of experience. She is also a board member of N Life Community where she currently serves as the organization’s Treasurer.
As a long time board member, Majida has incorporated her professional management experience with her passion for helping others to help facilitate N Life’s programming achievements.
When Majida isn’t managing, you can find her enjoying family time, gaming with friends, or volunteering for community organizations.
Ruwaydah Amin
Board Member & Camp Director
Ruwaydah Amin is a Baltimore native and a graduate of Baltimore City Community College and Coppin State University. Ruwaydah has been an educator in Baltimore for over 15 years. She was raised in a family that is always heavily involved in the community, and she has been an active community member for over 20 years. Throughout the years, Ruwaydah has been a member of several nonprofit/volunteer organizations, whose goals are to help those in need and provide fun activities for families. Ruwaydah truly enjoys helping those in need. After years of support, Ruwaydah joined the N Life board in 2017. In her free time Ruwaydah likes to enjoy nature, travel, write poetry, and spend quality time with her son.
Rasheedah Sharif
Board Member
Rasheedah Sharif is an IT professional with over 20 years experience. Rasheedah is a Morgan State Alumna who has called many places home from Egypt to North Carolina, but Baltimore is where she was born, raised, and currently resides. She has sat as a member of many boards that work to uplift the communities in which she has lived. She is known for being nurturing, and extremely generous with her time and energy. She continusly goes out of her way to help when she knows someone in need. As a member of NLifes Board she is able to live her passion for helping others on a large scale and extend her heart far past her immediate village. Rasheedah is dedicated to decreasing her environmental footprint and believes we must all do our part to leave a better world for our children.
Olushola Aleem
Board Member
Olushola Aleem (affectionately known as Jolly, for his chipper personality) was born and raised in Baltimore city, and is a father of three. He is the Operations Manger of Imminent Services, a private security agency, which is very active in volunteering in the community. When he’s not at work, Jolly is actively helping people and volunteering in the community as an Anti-Violence Advocate, Funeral Assistant, and Community Event Planner. He also enjoys camping, firearms training, and serving as a member of NLife's Board.
He has been a member of Nlife for four years, and by working with Nlife he gets to live his passion of helping others.
Siddeeqah Fichman
Board Member
In her day job, Siddeeqah is an automation engineer, but in essence, she is a writer, an urban farmer and a believer in radical empathy. With Nlife, she can do formally, what she has always done inherently. She creates community wherever she is and tries to leave spaces and people better than how she found them. She believes in cultivating beauty within every experience even if it’s just with a smile.
Ms Betty Bland-Thomas
Advisor
Ms. Betty Bland-Thomas continues a rich tradition of feminist activism in the community of Sharp Leadenhall. She is the former president of the Sharp Leadenhall Planning Committee and current president of the South Baltimore Partnership, two
organizations dedicated to the improvement of Sharp Leadenhall in a number of areas including community greening, inclusive housing and youthworks programs.
Ms. Thomas's residence was the first home purchased in the community through Light Street Housing affordable housing program, a milestone program in the preservation of this community from gentrification.
Christina Delgado
Advisor
Christina Delgado is the founder & owner of @tolas_room , a collective of the arts, community, and education. She is deeply invested in issues of diversity, equity, and art empowerment, upholding the mindset that these issues are a collective responsibility and thus require engagement and action.
Tola’s Room provides a space that educates and influences using art, culture, and community organizing--creating dialogue and conversation, providing strategies, resource & networking opportunities, while giving individuals an artistic outlet to share and express what they have learned. Using art, cultural experience, and community organizing, Tola’s Room provides a space that educates, influences, and empowers communities to be the change they want to see.
Tola’s Room has partnered with many local businesses and community partners over the years. Their most recent partnership of 2021 was with Morgan CARES and NLife Inc. Their partnership developed a pilot project entitled, #JustDont: Youth Anti-Litter & Art Advocacy Movement. This concept uses art as a tool to educate people about the effects of trash on community and health.
In addition to Tola’s Room, Christina currently serves as the Stewardship Coordinator for @nehihomes North East Housing Initiative (NEHI) a community land trust nonprofit in North East Baltimore.
She served for 5 years as the Community Development Manager at Belair-Edison Neighborhoods, Inc. where she envisioned, created, facilitated, and managed multiple creative community art related projects—helping to revitalize Belair-Edison, a community in Northeast Baltimore and her home of 15 years.
At the city level, she serves in the Community Advocacy Position on the Board of the Environmental Control Board for Baltimore City and the Director of Community Relations on the Board of City Neighbors Hamilton, along with serving on various community-based grant review committees and race equity groups. She remains active on the Maryland State Arts Council’s Artist-in-Resident Roster and works part time as a Photography Teaching Artist and Community Arts Education Consultant with Young Audiences of Maryland.
Munir Bahar
Advisor
Munir Bahar is a shining example of the power of commitment and the relentless execution of a vision.
For 20 years Bahar has been instrumental in providing technical and visionary support to entrepreneurs throughout the east coast. He has helped to establish over 250 companies, nonprofit and for-profit, representing a plethora of business industries. He has provided guidance and technical services including LLC formations, incorporations, 501c3 approvals, business plans, strategic plans, branding, and financial forecasts.
Bahar’s leadership role as a social entrepreneur has also provided him the platform to change the physical and cultural landscape of Baltimore City. Three distinct organizations that Bahar developed have amassed global recognition and support; Raise It Up, 300 Men March and COR Health Institute.
During the Freddie Gray unrest of 2015, Bahar’s 300 Men March Movement helped to quell the tension between law enforcement and civilians. Later that year Bahar led a historic march from Baltimore City to the Washington DC to raise awareness around the rise of urban gun violence.
In addition to his role as principal for COR Consulting, Bahar is currently leading a small urban transformation project in East Baltimore, buying and transforming vacant properties. The properties are developed by his nonprofit, COR Health Institute and being used to facilitate community programs. To date COR has acquired 7 properties. 4 have been successfully converted into one building now serving as the headquarters for COR. As Executive Director of the COR Health Institute, Bahar provides free programs to the local community children teaching leadership principles using martial arts and fitness training. Bahar also involved in a public safety movement to empower citizens to protect themselves against crime
Bahar is the recipient of a 2014 Presidential Award for Community Leadership in health and fitness, a 2015 recipient for Baltimore Business Journal’s 40 under 40 award, and in 2016 was featured as a “change maker” on NBC News.