Somalis abroad in public life

Munira Khalif

Munira Khalif (born 1996) is a Somali-American from Minneapolis who served as the sixth US Youth Observer to the United Nations in 2018 and 2019. In 2015 she was accepted to all eight Ivy League universities; she studied at Harvard and co-founded Lighting the Way, a youth group for girls' education in East Africa.

Last checked 2026-11-12 1 source Reading time: 1 min

Munira Khalif

Lived
1996 to today
Era
Rebuilding without a state, 1991 to 2012; Who holds power, 2012 to now
Sources
1 sources

Who is she?

Munira Khalif is a first-generation Somali-American, born in 1996 and raised in Minneapolis, who served as the sixth United States Youth Observer to the United Nations in 2018–2019 (Wikipedia, Munira Khalif). See Somalis in Minneapolis–St Paul.

Education

She went to Mounds Park Academy, graduating in 2015 as commencement speaker (Wikipedia). That year she made national news when she was accepted by all eight Ivy League schools as well as Georgetown, Stanford and the University of Minnesota, and went on to study economics and government at Harvard (same source).

Work

She co-founded Lighting the Way, a youth-run non-profit working to make education more accessible for girls in East Africa, and advises Girl Up at the United Nations Foundation (Wikipedia). She was appointed US Youth Observer to the UN in 2017, a role chosen each year by the State Department and the UN Association of the USA (same source). She received the Youth Courage Award from the UN Special Envoy for Global Education, one of nine recipients worldwide (same source).

In short

A Minneapolis Somali student who represented American youth at the UN.

Sources

  1. Wikipedia, Munira Khalif · en.wikipedia.org

Munira Khalif

Lived
1996 to today
Era
Rebuilding without a state, 1991 to 2012; Who holds power, 2012 to now
Sources
1 sources

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