Kids4Peace Making a Difference
On Friday, July 10, Kids4Peace Atlanta visited Al-Farooq Masjid in midtown. The group included local kids and their Muslim, Christian, and Jewish counterparts from Jerusalem. The children and chaperones toured the mosque, observed the Friday prayer, and spoke with mosque director, Dr. Khalid Siddiq, and ISB director, Soumaya Khalifa.
On Monday, July 13, Ms. Khalifa attended the Tent of Abraham performance, where Atlanta kids partnered with their friends from Jerusalem for a series of skits highlighting aspects of their faith traditions.
Capping the week, on Wednesday, July 15, Dr. Siddiq and Ms. Khalifa spoke with Kids4Peace North Carolina as they toured Al-Farooq Masjid. The group was eager to learn and had questions about the structure and design of the mosque, the prayers, and the Atlanta Muslim community. All the questions and answers were translated into Arabic and Hebrew to make sure that all the participants understood what was being said.
The ISB looks forward to a great summer 2010 with Kids4Peace!
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Fulbright Scholars Enjoy Visit to Atlanta
On Tuesday, July 28, Soumaya Khalifa met with a delegation of 24 international Fulbright scholars. Their six-week program included stays at UC Santa Barbara, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and Washington, D.C. The purpose of the tour is to study religious pluralism in the United States.
In Atlanta, they were hosted by Dr. Kathryn McClymond, chair of the Department of Religion at Georgia State University. The group's Atlanta experience included trips to historic Ebenezer Baptist Church, The Temple, BAPS Swaminayaran Hindu Temple, and Al-Farooq Masjid. The visit to the mosque included a tour and a presentation on the history of Atlanta's Muslim community. Ms. Khalifa shared the story of the ISB, its accomplishments, partnerships, and annual Building Bridges Awards Dinner.
The Fulbright delegation, all scholars of religion at the university level, represented the following countries, among others: Turkey, Jordan, Oman, Israel, Argentina, Armenia, China, India, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Russia, and Indonesia.
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About the ISB
The Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta is a
501(c)3 non-profit, apolitical educational organization that provides certified
Muslim speakers to promote awareness about Islam and Muslims.
The ISB is a local affiliate of the Islamic Networks Group (ING).
Donations to the ISB are tax deductible and may be mailed to ISB Atlanta,
P.O. Box 2608, Peachtree City, GA 30269. Alternatively, supporters may send
their contributions through our secure website.
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Dear Friends,
This month we are excited to feature the accomplishments of some amazing youth. Diverse groups of young people came together right here in Atlanta for two important interfaith events. To your left, you will find a feature about Kids4Peace, an outstanding interfaith organization that won the ISB's Building Bridges Award in 2008. Below you will find an article about Emory's annual Youth Theological Initiative (YTI), a groundbreaking program which won the Building Bridges Award in 2006. This year we spoke with YTI participant, Omar Hamid, to learn why young people feel it's important to serve. Kids4Peace and the YTI are only two of the organizations the ISB has partnered with to give back to the community. These partnerships reflect a larger, national initiative the ISB is proud to support: President Barack Obama's United We Serve. To learn more about this national program of volunteers, please visit serve.gov. We hope you will be inspired to learn more about these efforts and see how you can support young people as they try to make a difference, locally and globally. Thank you so much for all you do, Soumaya Khalifa, Executive Director Islamic Speakers Bureau of Atlanta
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YTI: Interfaith Teens Learning & Serving Together
Emory University's Youth Theological Initiative (YTI) held its annual day of service on July 13. The YTI is a summer program for rising high-school seniors. Every year, participants partner with youth from America's major faith communities for a day of service, allowing the young people to share a common experience and build relationships.
Before the day of service, YTI participants took part in a number of educational sessions designed to enhance their knowledge of the major faith traditions. At Emory's Candler School of Theology, the ISB presented an overview of Islam and Muslims to YTI students and mentors in preparation for their visit to the Atlanta Masjid of al-Islam, where they were slated to observe the Friday prayer.
The Roswell Community Mosque was the setting for a mandatory orientation session for Muslim teens participating in the YTI. The session is intended to prepare the teens for the day of service, help them to understand the objectives of the program, and educate them on how to engage with people of different faiths. ISB speakers, Emad Hamid and Bassem Fakhoury, led the session, and were joined by YTI director, Beth Corrie.
Zaynab Ansari spoke with YTI participant, Omar Hamid, Emad's son, and a rising freshman at Georgia Perimeter College, to get an insider's view of the YTI experience. Their conversation follows below. Zaynab: Omar, thanks so much for talking to us. Tell me about your role in the YTI orientation process. Omar: I helped to train new participants. It was good because I was able to draw from my past experience with the YTI and tell the youth from our community what to expect. I let them know that their main expectation should be to have fun. The atmosphere at the YTI is very relaxed. We learn about each other's faith traditions, talk about our favorite sports teams, and volunteer together. Zaynab: What sorts of questions did your interfaith counterparts ask? Omar: They were very curious and had a lot of questions. They were also very sensitive and expressed that they wanted to ask the right questions. We talked a lot about prayer and gender issues. Zaynab: Tell me more about the day of service. How was it organized? And what was the focus? Omar: We were all organized into groups and joined by mentors. We took buses out to a local warehouse where our job was to sort a number of books into categories and pack them up. The project we worked on is called Books for Africa and it provided us with a great opportunity. We had a chance to send books to students in Africa and we had people from different walks of life coming together for the common good. Zaynab: Any advice for people who'd like to participate in the YTI but might feel too shy? Omar: It really helps to get out of the comfort zone of always being with people of the same faith. The YTI provided us with a good opportunity to discuss our faith and learn about each other. It's important to have the the experience of going the extra mile. We were there to make friends, have fun, and build a brighter future for our country! |
The Shriver Report in Atlanta
Soumaya Khalifa was invited to participate in a round-table discussion for the Shriver Report, a project led by Maria Shriver. The formal title of the project is A Woman's Nation, a reference to the fact that women now make up a full 50% of the nation's workforce and and are increasingly becoming the breadwinners for their families. The Shriver Report hopes to study this phenomenon in more detail.
The project team has held sessions across the nation. On Monday, July 20, they visited Atlanta to focus on women and faith. A diverse round table was convened and the 90-minute discussion touched on everything from the impact of the current economic crisis on charitable giving to the contemporary role of religious institutions.
On the question of women's roles in religious leadership, the participants agreed that women in all faith traditions face challenges. Ms. Khalifa reiterated the need for Muslim women to dig deep into their religious tradition, understand it, and regain their rightful place.
The women also spoke about the importance of being part of a community and having connections to it, whether institutionally or otherwise.
In sum, the Shriver Report provided an excellent opportunity for networking among Atlanta women of diverse faith traditions.
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