EARLY LIFE AND EDUCATION

Halil Demir, an internationally recognized humanitarian and founder of the Zakat Foundation of America (ZFA), was born in a small farming village in southeastern Türkiye. Growing up amid hardship, he learned the values of perseverance, compassion, and community service from an early age. His childhood was shaped by long walks to school and long hours helping his family on the farm — experiences that gave him a firsthand understanding of deprivation and a deep empathy for those who suffer.

Demir credits his mother, an illiterate but profoundly wise Anatolian woman, as the greatest influence in his life. She instilled in him the transformative power of education and compassion. In her honor, the school in his village now bears her name — a lasting testament to her belief that learning is the path out of poverty.

Driven by a thirst for knowledge, Demir taught himself to read and later pursued higher education across Europe and the United States.
 He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Basel (Switzerland) and went on to complete a Master of Arts in History at Chicago State University (USA). Building on this foundation, he later earned a Master’s in Nonprofit Management from North Park University (USA) and completed Harvard University’s Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management Executive Education Program in 2019.

Currently, Demir is a Ph.D. candidate in Education at the University of Vienna (Austria), where his research focuses on tuition-free university models and expanding equitable access to higher education.
Along the way, he became fluent in six languages — English, Persian, German, Arabic, Kurdish, and his native Turkish — a skill that reflects his multicultural worldview and supports his international humanitarian work.