INSPIRATIONAL WOMEN PROFILES: MAYSOON ZAYID

Nisaa FM:-  Maysoon Zayid is of Palestinian descent and is an American comedian. She is one of America’s first Muslim female comedians and the first person to ever perform stand-up comedy in Palestine and Jordan.

Zayid has cerebral palsy but has never let that stop her from doing what she wants to do. She started a career in acting and even appeared on popular TV shows like As the World Turns, Law & Order, NCB Nightly News and ABC’s 20/20. However, she felt that her ethnicity as well as her disability was putting her at a disadvantage, so she turned to comedy.

She flourished and was appearing on the stages of New York’s top comedy clubs and was including topics such as terrorism and the Israel-Palestine conflict in her acts. In 2003, she co-founded the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival and since then, her career in comedy has taken off.

Zayid also spend three months every year in refugee camps in Palestine where she runs an arts program for disabled and orphaned children. 80% of the funding for the program comes from her work as a comedian and she helps the children to deal with their trauma through art.

Source:www.abouther.com