Meet Anahita Maleknia

Anahita Maleknia, a senior at UAB, is using her love for reading to make a difference in the lives on third graders through the Page Pals Program.

Maleknia, a Huntsville native, grew up loving to read and could always be found with a book in her hand.

"Reading has always been a substantial part of my life," Maleknia said. "It's such an important part of childhood, having your parents read to you, having loved ones read you, and being able to escape to a different place within books."

Maleknia stumbled across a Page Pals ad in 2023 from Mayor Randall Woodfin, who was recruiting community members to become volunteers for the program, which seeks to offer support to third grade students in the Birmingham City Schools district to ensure every third grader can read at or above grade level, in alignment with the Alabama Literacy Act.

Following the conclusion of the 2023-2024 schoolyear, she saw the announcement that BCS saw a 28 percent increase, moving the once 53 percent to 81 percent literacy proficiency for the district.

Seeing the success of Page Pals, Maleknia wanted to take action and began advocating to provide additional resources to assist with the Page Pals efforts.

"I'm like, 'wow, this is actually working,' and it's made such a difference within a year," Maleknia said. I think by empowering young readers, we're empowering future leaders so I was excited to become involved deeper."

Through her involvement with the Southern Poverty Law Center, she saw the perfect opportunity to advocate for Page Pals to receive additional support.

"I was a part of the Southern Poverty Law Center Alabama Advocacy Institute, which is a coalition of about 20 people," she said. "We went through trainings in Montgomery, Alabama and at the end of the trainings, we had to present to judges of Southern Poverty Law Center an advocacy pitch, and I knew I wanted to do my project around reading literacy rates and improving them. 

Maleknia's pitch included hosting literacy nights and book drives for families across the city of Birmingham and having a celebration for Birmingham City Schools upon the conclusion of the Alabama Comprehensive Assessment Program, better know as the ACAP. Her pitch received honors following the conclusion of the program.

Maleknia looks forward to being able to implement her pitch ideas with the support of the City of Birmingham soon. Her future plans include finishing her political science degree in December 2025 and enroll in law school to become a lawyer. She encourages other youth and young adults to take action when they see issues because they have the power to create change.

"If something bothers you, take action," she said. "Don't just be performative. Don't just repost on social media. Sign petitions, go to peaceful protests, go immerse yourself into the community, volunteer and really be a part of the difference. The change that we want to see in the world is at the hands of the youth right now."