Rafi Islam is SVP’s Bengali Member Organizer. He grew up in Bangladesh seeing a lot of food vendors outside of his school gate and eating only street food for lunch and after school. That inspired him to stay connected with the vendors here in NYC when he moved here. And now he’s a Founding Member of JhalNYC which is a social entrepreneurship venture built to empower the Bengali New York community through food and employ stay at home mothers and new immigrants and help build their language skills and prepare them for careers they seek to transition to. Jhal connected him to SVP when they were in need of a Bengali Organizer. And now he educates and advocates the Bengali vendors in NYC with  SVP. Rafi’s favorite street food is Jhalmuri.