Rafiq Kalam Id-Din

  • Teaching Firms of America

  • Member, Echoing Green Board of Directors

  • 2007 Global Fellow

Rafiq Kalam Id-Din
  • Teaching Firms of America

  • Member, Echoing Green Board of Directors

  • 2007 Global Fellow

bold idea

Establish a network of one-room schoolhouses in inner cities that will revive elementary education as a stepping stone from poverty to prosperity.

Personal Bio

Rafiq R. Kalam Id-Din II, Esq., a current resident of Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, is Founder & Managing Partner of Ember Charter Schools for Mindful Education, Innovation and Transformation (Ember), formerly Teaching Firms of America Charter Schools (TFOA). A social entrepreneur, activist, teacher, lawyer and nonprofit leader with over 25-years experience, Rafiq grew up in severe poverty in inner city Philadelphia during the height of the crack epidemic and violence of the 1980s and early 1990s.

A two-time graduate of the University of Virginia (Bachelors in English and African-American Studies, and a Master of Teaching—English Education), Rafiq received his JD from NYU School of Law as a Thurgood Marshall Scholar, becoming an Editor of the Law Review and President of the Student Bar Association.

Rafiq practiced law with Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP in New York and Hong Kong, before serving as Executive Director of the AnBryce Foundation in the Washington, DC area, a pioneering pipeline program focused on impactful education opportunities for socio-economically disadvantaged youth. In 2007 Rafiq received the prestigious Echoing Green Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurs for his innovative “Teaching Firm”, an innovative model for fully teacher-led schools managed like law firms, the first of which launched in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn in 2011.

A co-founder and former Executive Board member of the NYC Coalition of Community Charter Schools, founder of the #BlackLedSchoolsMatter initiative and co-founder of the Black-Latinx-Asian Charters Collective, Rafiq also currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Echoing Green and President of the NYU Law Alumni of Color Association (LACA). Rafiq continues to maintain a small private legal practice providing pro bono services to a number of indigent clients from the community.

  • Organization/Fellow Location ?

    Our most recent information as to where the Fellow primarily resides.

    Brooklyn, United States

  • Impact Location ?

    Countries or continents that were the primary focus of this Fellow’s work at the time of their Fellowship.

  • Organization Structure ?

    An organization can be structured as a nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid (a structure that incorporates both nonprofit and for-profit elements).

    Nonprofit

  • Visit website