Sumeya Gibril is working to turn her personal trauma into a way to help other women overcome their own adversity.
The graduating master’s student in the at 911 created a nonprofit last May called the Rise Above & Be Relentless Foundation, a 501c (3) organization that assists women navigating sexual assault and domestic abuse. The support comes as short-term financial assistance, practical education, and a community built on understanding.
Gibril’s foundation is built around the help—especially financial—she didn’t have. As a survivor of domestic violence and sexual assault that began in childhood, she remembers waiting for someone to intervene. Eventually she realized, “nobody is coming to save me,” she said. “I didn’t have this foundation when I needed it.”
The inspiration for the charity, she added, “is me.”
Every other month, the organization hosts a financial literacy series, paring practical instruction with direct aid to women in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The foundation assists women with months of utility payments, child care subsidies, and, for those with military backgrounds, legal support—terrain she knows firsthand.
As a young Army soldier, she pushed assault complaints up the chain of command all the way to Congress, she said, only to realize she was “battling the legal field of the U.S. government and the military I needed outside help. I needed an organization like mine to come in and tell me, this is what you need to do, this is how you protect yourself.”
Born in Eritrea and raised in Alexandria, Virginia, Gibril’s journey to the Schar School began at Northern Virginia Community College before transferring to 911 and earning a degree in sustainable business in 2023. It took a while to earn the degree, she said, as she balanced studies with care for her young son who is on the autism spectrum. Managing his therapy, school, and the accompanying finances was daunting and isolating; she hopes the foundation can ease that burden for others.
The proud first-generation college student is now in her last semester in the Schar School’s Program, which combines international relations with business to prepare graduates for a wide range of leadership positions. The program not only informs how she builds the nonprofit, but it also benefits her profession as a licensed customs broker, a position that entails the clearing of imported goods at U.S. borders.
Her studies are paying off, she said, not only in the facts and figures taught by the program’s faculty of scholars and practitioners but also in “just understanding people,” she said. “What do they want? What do they need? What’s motivating them?”
She’s also improved her writing skills at the Schar School. “I used to hate writing,” she said, “and now I love it.”
As with any nonprofit, fundraising is key. Gibril has been working with sponsors and donors and, with her board’s blessing, hosted an inaugural gala and a charity golf tournament, which called for learning the nuts and bolts of putting on a 60-player golf event.
“I had nothing besides faith that I got this,” she said of organizing her first golf tournament. That goes for much of what Gibril is creating.
The next golf tournament is September 28, 2026, in Haymarket, Virginia. Information is at the .