Ending the cycle

Tasneem Rahman strives to halt poverty, illiteracy

By Cori Bolger

The Lake Oswego Review, Feb 14, 2008, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (3 Reader comments)

Vern Uyetake / Lake Oswego Review

Lake Oswego resident Tasneem Saeed Rahman co-founded the One Ummah Foundation with her husband, Mohammad. Their non-profit partners with other organizations to build schools in seven countries, including her native country of Pakistan.

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It’s hard not to be amazed by the way Tasneem Saeed Rahman balances a schedule of work, food, family and faith, yet still manages to emerge looking impeccable.

But when you ask how she does it, she just laughs. Her dark brown eyes twinkle as though it’s all in a secret she won’t tell.

Rahman’s close friend of 26 years, Salma Ahmad, describes this phenomenon best.

“Even when she’s stressed out, she covers it very well,” Ahmad said. “She just has this incredible smile.”

Ahmad went on: “For me, anyone can be an excellent wife and mother, but a friend is something truly exceptional … She will always be there for you, for anyone who needs her.”

To say Rahman will help “anyone,” even on her busiest day, is an understatement.

Besides working to meet the needs of her Muslim friends in the greater Portland area, Rahman also helps build schools in other countries with the One Ummah Foundation, a non-profit she co-founded with her husband, Mohammad.

Through partnerships with other organizations, One Ummah (which means “One People”) has helped build more than 200 schools to educate kids in Sri Lanka, Cameroon, Cambodia, Indonesia, Pakistan and India.

“Whoever enrolls will be given the chance,” Rahman said.

Rahman’s goal is to end the cycle of illiteracy and poverty in those countries through education. She also wants to show everyone that – with a little bit of money and passion – it can be done.

“We only focus below poverty level, otherwise these children would be in child labor,” said Rahman, a native of Karachi, Pakistan. “The need is so great, and not just in Pakistan … education is the best gift (Americans) can give another country.”

Rahman will share her experiences growing up in Pakistan, moving to America and the cultural challenges she has faced as part of “One Woman’s Journey,” a Lake Oswego Reads lecture Wednesday.

For fans of Greg Mortenson’s story in “Three Cups of Tea,” Rahman’s hands-on involvement with One Ummah is sure to intrigue and inspire.

As a young woman, Rahman earned her bachelors of science degree in psychology before marrying and moving to Oregon in 1982. Two years later, her family moved to Lake Oswego.

“We wanted to be close to the mosque for our children,” she said.

While raising her children, Rahman became actively involved with the local Muslim community, which was relatively small in those days. She especially became driven to address issues concerning poverty, education and community building.

But in 1999, the Rahmans were devastated when their 11-year-old son Mustafa died in a car accident involving a drunken driver on Kruse Way.

The Rahmans, who were already funding the care of orphans in Pakistan, knew that creating a foundation to help children around the world would be the best way to honor their son’s memory.

“We’ve always supported places where people had a need, but it was nothing under any organization. Wherever the need was (we helped),” she said. “Religiously, Islam is very big on charity.”

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