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Maheen Kaleem, JD
Breaking the School-to-Prison Pipeline’s Summary Offense Link
Maheen currently serves as Vice President of Operations and Programs for Grantmakers for Girls of Color (G4GC).
Previously, Maheen was a Program Officer for the Initiative to End Violence Against Girls and Women at the NoVo Foundation and manages NoVo’s portfolio on commercial sexual exploitation. She also served as a Staff Attorney and Equal Justice Works Fellow at Rights4Girls, where she engaged in policy training, technical assistance, and research with a specific focus on the intersection of child sex trafficking and juvenile justice. Maheen was a first responder for one of the nation’s first multi-agency pilots to address commercial sexual exploitation of children. She also co-founded and served as the Director of Client Services for Pennsylvania Lawyers for Youth, an organization that provides educational rights counseling and assistance to young people who are reentering the community following their involvement in the juvenile justice system. As a Stoneleigh Emerging Leader Fellow at the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania (ACLU-PA) from 2013-2014, Maheen helped develop a legal advocacy strategy to reduce the prevalence of summary criminal citations in response to minor school misconduct. Maheen honed her advocacy and policy skills at the Sexually Abused and Commercially Exploited Youth/Safe Place Alternative program and the Campaign for Youth Justice.
Maheen holds a BS and a BSFS in international politics and human rights from Georgetown University and a JD from Georgetown University Law Center.