Meet Maha: Helping Families Navigate New York’s Health System for 23 Years
Maha sits at her desk long before our office fills with morning noise, preparing for the steady stream of neighbors who rely on her help to secure health care for their families. As AAFSC’s long-time Health Insurance Navigator, she is the person our community turns to when accessing health care benefits feels overwhelming or inaccessible. And for many, especially Arabic-speaking newcomers, Maha is the person who makes the difference between confusion and clarity, between delaying care and getting lifesaving support.
Each year, Maha helps hundreds of individuals and families navigate insurance renewals, coverage changes, and complex eligibility rules. Many of the people she works with are facing significant health challenges. One client, a cancer survivor, was terrified when her renewal window approached. Her treatment depended on uninterrupted insurance. Maha helped her assemble documents, correct errors, and resubmit everything on time. “You saved my life,” Maha recounts the woman saying to her.
Another client, a young man living far from his family, fell ill during the pandemic. Isolated and unsure where to turn, he came to AAFSC after hearing that someone here spoke his language. Maha ensured he enrolled in a plan he could maintain and connected him to a doctor who understood his situation. Each year during renewal season, he calls Maha to thank her and to review his health coverage together.In recent months, our community has confronted the potential end of certain health tax credits, higher deductibles, Essential Plan uncertainties, and ongoing federal changes that make decision-making even harder for families. Maha navigates all of this with an unwavering focus on each client’s well-being.
Her leadership extends far beyond our community center. She represents the Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) community on New York State’s Navigator Health Advisory Committee, where she advocates for clearer Arabic-language materials, improved cultural competency, and a more accessible enrollment system. Recently, she helped ensure Arabic-speaking households received updated notices by mail, a small change that dramatically improved people’s ability to keep coverage active. Her work informed the new statewide MENA category on intake forms, helping thousands of families be counted more accurately.Still, what defines Maha’s impact is the way people feel when they leave her office. Many say she feels like a family member. Maha often describes AAFSC as a multigenerational home, full of life and motion, where everyone is connected.
Her dream is for AAFSC to eventually offer a one-stop services location for the people we help in a single building where all our programs, including legal services, mental health counseling, youth support, domestic violence case management, adult readiness, and benefits navigation, operate under one roof.