Staff Bio: Waheedah Shabazz-El

Waheedah Shabazz-El, a 55-year-old African American Muslim woman, is a Community Organizer and Trainer with the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP). Waheedah is a retired Postal Worker who was diagnosed with AIDS in 2003. Since her diagnosis, she has become a fervent member of the social justice movement and an AIDS activist, advocate, educator and community organizer. Certified in HIV prevention, she is also an organizer and spokesperson for ACT-UP Philadelphia. Waheedah is a graduate of Project TEACH Outside and Project TEACH, educational advocacy programs at Philadelphia FIGHT. She is employed by Philadelphia FIGHT as an HIV counselor and tester and volunteers as a peer educator. She is an organizer for the Philadelphia County Coalition for Prison Health-Care, an editor of Prison Health newsletter, and a member of the PRHCN (Prison Re-Entry Health-Care Network). She is also a member of the Ryan White Positive Committee for Philadelphia’s Office of HIV Planning.

Waheedah took an HIV test during a six-month incarceration in 2003. At that time, she learned that she was not only HIV positive but also had AIDS. Not knowing where to turn, Waheedah was led to ACT-UP Philadelphia. She had heard about a group who fought for dignity for people living with AIDS. Waheedah found that dignity at ACT-UP as well as the strength and empowerment to understand that she could make a difference by being vocal about HIV and raising awareness in her own community and ultimately around the world.

Waheedah is currently the sole community representative on the HPTN 064 Protocol Team, which is in the process of developing an HIV prevention clinical trial targeting women at risk in the United States. She is the Community Constituency Representative for the INSIGHT Clinical Trials Network at Temple University Hospital and serves as Vice Chair of the Penn Center for AIDS Research Community Advisory Board. She is also a member of the National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA).

She remains closely allied with local schools, faith-based groups, county prisons, homeless shelters, recovery houses and abused women’s programs, where she shares her life experiences and teaches HIV prevention. She advocates for national and international marginalized communities. Waheedah resides in the Overbrook section of Philadelphia. Recently widowed, Waheedah is the mother of three adults and has four teenage grandchildren, all of whom support her role as a community advocate who offers a glimmer of hope to the many people on whom the struggle has taken its toll.

Waheedah retired from the US Postal Service in 2005 and now accepts the position of working full time as an advocate for Social Change. She loves to cook and entertain her friends, family and extended family of activists and advocates. Her home in Overbrook has been delightfully referred as the “underground railroad for activists." She also loves to write, play scrabble and swim.

Waheedah has a magnetic personality, and her devotion to her work as a community organizer is evident in her passion and perseverance.