Meet Sade Elhawary
Sade Elhawary is an educator, organizer, and foster parent. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Sade has been involved in politics and activism from the time she was elected Student Body President in elementary school. Sade has dedicated her life to dismantling oppressive systems one by one and being a driving force for justice and liberation.
The eldest daughter of immigrants who moved to the United States for a brighter future, Sade attended local K-12 public schools and was mentored by teachers who helped her become the first in her family to go to college.
After receiving her bachelor’s degree from UCLA and master’s from Harvard Graduate School of Education, Sade joined the faculty team that founded and created the curriculum of the Nelson Mandela School for Social Justice.
From the time she was little, Sade watched her mom, a single mother of three girls, organize women for better jobs, equal pay, and access to reproductive health care.
As a Black and Latina woman, Sade is deeply committed to improving outcomes for women and young people of color and building Black/Brown solidarity to transform underserved communities.
Sade helped create the Fremont High School Wellness Center, a health clinic created to address health disparities in local neighborhoods. She also helped win the School Climate Bill of Rights, a resolution that will reduce racial profiling in Los Angeles schools.
At Community Coalition, where she was mentored by Karen Bass and Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Sade has spent more than 12 years as a youth organizer, recruiting, training, and developing the next generation of leaders for the social justice movement. She recently served as the Youth Engagement Campaign Manager on Karen Bass’s successful campaign to become L.A.’s first female mayor.
On August 2, 2019, Sade became a foster parent to Makailah, a youth she was mentoring. Sade helped guide her to stay in school, turn her grades around, graduate, and start college.
