BIO - HANEEFAH MUHAMMAD
Haneefah’s Jamaican parents came to the UK in the 1950s and settled in London. She is the youngest of 3 children and experienced childhood illness and family break-up. Haneefah believes these early life events inspired her to want to help others connect with their inner strength and free themselves to create the life of their choice.
Haneefah is a ‘people person’. She has over 20 years of experience as a Social Worker, mainly with people experiencing complex mental health issues. She is also a Soul Empowered Life Coach and public speaker. Haneefah connects with people in an empathetic and empowering way. She runs workshops, seminars and presentations where participants discover tools and strategies to transform their beliefs, thoughts and actions to live more fulfilling and meaningful lives.
Haneefah is also an author and has written two books The A-Z of Stress Solutions' (2014) that offers effective and practical strategies to manage stress and taking care of our health and wellbeing. My Soul Purpose (2019) is a collection of Haneefah’s poems about life, living and learning on the journey to find our true selves. She has also co-authored two books Life Inna Lockdown (2020) about 22 ordinary women and their stories of resilience in this most challenging time. In the book, Haneefah uses poetry to tell her personal ‘Lockdown’ story.
The second book ‘Emergence’ was launched last Friday 11.12.2020 and is part of her work with the Butterfly Project in Luton. Haneefah collaborated with other amazing women to create a book of poetry telling their stories of trauma and survival.
Haneefah believes poetry can inspire, encourage and motivate us to make a positive change in our own lives and in the lives of others. She is part of a poetry collective, Soul Food Poetry, working with other amazing artists taking their uplifting and thought-provoking messages around the country. Last year, Haneefah had some wonderful opportunities to perform with local community arts groups and creatives. They included Luton’s People, Power, Passion event; the Butterfly Project for women and more recently The Mother Monologues that performed its sell-out show at The Hat Factory in March 2020. Her poem ‘End Austerity’ was shown at the August 2020 Edinburgh Fringe On-Line event.
Haneefah has lived in Luton for nearly 20 years and is still discovering the richness and diversity of this historic town. She loves spending time with her 97 years old mother and other family members and friends. Haneefah’s Muslim faith is central to her life; she also likes reading, theatre, travelling and learning new skills and creative activities.
Haneefah Muhammad
December 2020
