Author: Qari Muhammad Asim
Publisher: The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board
Release Date: 2011
Pages: 106
Source: www.minab.org.uk

From the Executive Summary, “In order to identify some of the key issues facing mosques and youth, the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (MINAB) held a series of workshops across the country to discuss youth engagement in mosques. A number of key themes emerged, but most notably it became clear that there seems to be a real lack of appreciation on the part of management committees and young Muslims of the challenges faced by each other…The workshops revealed the types of services and activities Muslim youngsters want their mosques to provide. These range from sports activites, youth clubs, “chill-out rooms”, community events and interfaith activities to the delivery of sermons in English and Imams with whom they can relate. This toolkit sets out the issues that were raised in detail to help break down the barriers between youth and mosque management committees in order to open up channels of communication between the two groups and ultimately encourage youth engagement in mosques.”

Extract from Part III – Youth Suggestions , “Women participants of workshops held in Leeds explained that at Makkah Masjid in Leeds, there was an initiative whereby the women’s subcommittee is given the opportunity to run the entire mosque for three days every year, running women-only activities (with men only allowed to enter the mosque for prayer). The purpose of handing the mosque over to the women’s sub-committee is: a) to make the women feel part of the institution; b) to give women an idea of what goes into running the mosque’ and c) to generate some ideas from the women on new activities that the mosque could run to cater specifically for their needs…”