Q&A with UMOJA's Planning and Facilitating Chair

UMOJA — the umbrella organization for black student groups at Penn — recently elected College junior Aya Saed as its new planning and facilitating chair. Saed, who has previously served as UMOJA’s financial co-chair and its political co-chair, sat down with The Daily Pennsylvanian to discuss her plans for the upcoming year.

Daily Pennsylvanian: Why did you choose to run for this position? Did you always envision yourself running for this position as a junior?

Aya Saed: While I never envisioned myself as the planning and facilitating chair, I eventually realized that there are unique things I can bring to the table. I’m really passionate about social and community involvement and knew I could incorporate that in my agenda. I was also part of the Muslim Students Association and I just feel like the MSA does a really good job of linking the West Philly community to Penn and hoped to lead UMOJA in the same endeavor.

DP: How will your past experience with UMOJA affect what you do as chair this semester?
AS: The unique thing about UMOJA is that it’s a horizontal board so I was able to be involved in various capacities as a board member. As political co-chair and financial co-chair, I attended all the key change meetings and could see specific initiatives that UMOJA could advocate for.

DP: What is your main goal this year for UMOJA and its constituent groups?
AS: What I really want to do is to ensure that our board reaches out to all of our constituent groups … so attending all the general body meetings, knowing what’s going on, I want to develop a relationship with all of our constituent group leaders.
I think more importantly I want to do all that because I want UMOJA to function as a liaison between the West Philly community and Penn.

DP: What are some of the areas within UMOJA that you feel have been weak in the past?
AS: I definitely saw a disconnect between the UMOJA board and the constituent body. We were never really hands-on with our constituent groups. We do a lot of great advocacy work but I think that we have a lot of work to do in order to ensure that the community itself is very united.

DP: What events or initiatives are you looking forward to planning this semester?
AS: The biggest thing that’s coming up is UMOJA Week, which starts Jan. 28 [and runs] up until Feb. 4. This is our biggest event of the year that was actually planned by the previous board. There will be a lot of great speakers, a lot of great cultural events.

DP: Is there anything else readers should know about UMOJA?
AS: I want to encourage all students to reach out and join us in our events and campaigns. Yes, UMOJA is a group that unites groups of the African diaspora, but we tackle issues that have campus-wide influence. So I definitely want to encourage anyone who is even remotely interested in social issues or advocacy work to reach out because this is not just a race-based group. We try to do things that yes, affect the black community, but definitely more than that.

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