 Assalamu alaikum everyone watching here online, Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem, رب الشهل صدري وسلم رحم الوخذة ملسانية الخولي. Today our topic that we're speaking about is stigma, how we are one community and how we make spaces for all. I'd like to just take a quick minute to thank the leadership here at MCC East Bay as well as from yesterday MCA Santa Clara for hosting T-Mosin to discuss these important topics in the community. So thanks to all of you that attended or that are watching online tonight. We're looking forward to a time when our masjids can be full again with people in person inshallah. A little bit about me. My name is Juhi Tahir. I'm a mom, a daughter, a wife, a sister and the executive director and co-founder of Mosin, an organization that promotes and supports the need for inclusion and accommodation for people with special needs and disabilities across our communities. By far the most important role in my life has been that of a mother to a daughter with special needs and it was through this role that I've now understood my true purpose of being and speaking from that experience over the years I'll tell you we as a family had an absence of community support we felt isolation we had no peers to understand our challenges as a family as we raised my daughter who was now diagnosed over 17 years ago and we were always open about her and about her disability with Muslims and non-Muslims but we truly felt that we were not able to access our own community and we were not fully included and there was a spiritual longing something was missing as well as social obviously based on our culture and our faith we knew this needed to change and this led to how we got to initiate develop along with Chehumar Salaman our founder and launch the organization we now know today as Mosin that I'm here representing. In fact I was interested a few years ago to read a study with Marquette University that 81% of families with special needs that were surveyed face discrimination and in conjunction with that in our own Mosin research we conduct a needs assessment or a survey we have over a thousand respondents nationwide 82% felt that they would like faith-based support and they would like that if it was offered and families have been reaching out and now they're being seen and being acknowledged through efforts of organizations like ours Alhamdulillah. What's notable here is that the research has pointed to challenges that gratefully we begin to we've begun to address and these were all things that were voids and in my life in our family's lives years ago. I just want us to look at our communities before I address actual stigma and what stigma is. Our growth as a community and our voice as a community the focus has shifted a little bit. We need to pause and reflect on challenges today as they're really quite different from challenges of the past when our community members first came and settled here or those who are from here the types of things our parents and our grandparents in some cases even our own generation they kind of lived in a much simpler time. Years ago we had musjids to build we had Islamic schools to start we had Halal grocery stores to open and even Islamic banking and Islamic finance to establish. Never did we really take the time to look into our own community internally we it seems to me were very focused our limited our limited focus was concern about external issues as Muslims. So what does that mean we were concerned about us versus them our rights how we need to live in this non-Muslim place and our surroundings and work with these external issues the schooling the banking the homes and I mean influences that impacted our children in schools and colleges our well-being with our neighbors and our value and equity as hard-working citizens of this country and in the workplace. Our focus about was everything about how we could live and function and thrive within this non- Muslim society while maintaining our Islamic values. I ask you to think for a moment about those valid challenges of the past but now understand we've not solved them but we've made some progress we've integrated as a community as Muslims and many people are addressing some of these challenges and issues throughout our society but our new challenges and mainly our discussion here tonight is to consider those that are internal challenges within our community. So what does it mean to make space for all Muslims it means taking pause and looking at our own community really looking at all of our community we're so diverse and in Islam we talk so admirably about the diversity in Islam but do we really embrace it in our everyday lives that think of that elderly person that sits in the corner of the masjid by themselves Juma after Juma. Are we addressing his needs that sister that volunteers relentlessly for everything she may seldom be heard even if she has great ideas the person who has a disability or is sick who cannot even access the community on a regular basis that everyone forgets about that revert brother who feels awkward and doesn't even fit in with his newfound family of brothers in Islam how do we begin to understand them all let alone making space for them I always say we need to really dig to a deep down place in our heart where we as humans have the need to be a part of something inclusion by definition is being part of where everyone else is taking part in a group or a structure feeling a part of something and we are one we're one umma this structure can be your masjid it can be your neighborhood it can be your youth group your organization however we're challenged right now as a community so many people are visibly isolated excluded or missing even unmasked if you want to use the term it's being unmasked just staying away from the masjid or from your Muslim peers at large I think a special needs family is you need to ask that question is it that they're far from their religion do they want to be that way likely the answer is no in their own words they say that they're not feeling welcome they have a notion of what role the community should play in their lives yet their needs are not being met if it's a new Muslim brother as I gave is an example earlier he prays and he leaves the masjid and no one even tries to speak to speak to him or socialize with him or invite him to anything if it's the individual of the disability maybe here she can't even participate in a conventional way when they're not accommodated for to be made welcome I once read from an author at Islamic Online University putting aside our own prejudices and assumptions we must recognize that disability in and of itself is not necessarily a hindrance or a disadvantage integrating people with disabilities into society is crucial in regards to their emotional and well and mental well-being for a successful integration we need to have empathy and we need to have a sense of care yet we don't want to overlook their strengths and their resources we don't want to ever take away someone's empowerment and I always say power over pity that's just a phrase we've coined because it's not about oh I'm just gonna support this person because they're weak it's about empowering them because they're your brother in Islam or your sister in Islam and I'm sharing our own dear Imam Zed Shaker once said years ago and I'm paraphrasing because I heard him live and I don't have the exact quote these individuals manage to figure out their daily functions they're not disabled it's us that are disabled our inability to see them for what they are and adjust and accept and honor them so shunned unmasked marginalized stigmatized underrepresented and underserved excluded forgotten pitied I mean I could go on and on and on but you know why because we are a disabled society unable to function as the Sunnah that our beloved Prophet Salaam has taught us with people of all abilities and needs this is why we need to advocate for this population I go back to my original point about looking internally at the community and taking a break from just the external challenges who's around you are there needs being met what are they looking for we very often find that when we allow these isolated individuals to access our beautiful communities they have so much to offer they bring ideas skills strengths that you would never know unless you reach out to them I always say we have a board member at our organization my shahla who lives with a physical disability he's one of the most intelligent strongest pious powerful people that I know and he contributes such amazing ideas to us as a board member of valuable impactful human being who happens to live with a disability so the ideal utopian community that follows the Sunnah of our beloved Prophet Salaam would be an example he's a lot of us a lot of transformed people and created a model community through his actions and interactions and he taught us to take that lead he embraced and cared for everyone so let's just cut to why do many people stay away stigma stigma is a central theme in a lot of research and findings when we're talking about the population of people with special needs we found the answer to stigma is awareness and education and inclusion that's what we're trying to do through the mission of our organization and through many of our masjids like MCC East Bay we're here today because my shahla they are a Muslim certified masjid they were actually the first Muslim certified masjid my shahla in the state of California my shahla and by providing people an opportunity to break down these barriers slowly seeing others like them coming out into the community that provides a very strong incentive to come forward at the start of muslim we had one chapter and we literally didn't know how many people would come out with special needs and who would join our programs and avail our services and slowly that changed today my shahla by the grace of alas panah and blessings there are nine chapters there are 18 weekend schools and there are over 70 certified muslim masjid communities my shahla with international efforts also beginning and also certified masjids in Canada I feel that all this progress again all thanks to alas panah the barriers are breaking down the stigma is being addressed it's not gone but it is slowly improving what is stigma defined as it's it's a mark of disgrace it's a mark of something inferior and there's both social stigma and there's self-stigma so let me tell you I personally stayed away from my own masjid for over 10 years not due to my own perceived stigma because I had no shame about my childhood special needs but it was due to the stigma that society put on my daughter's condition the way they responded to her she has special needs but she's truly the biggest blessing in our lives they just don't know that or they didn't know that any of these so-called stigmas and there are many someone who is sick someone who has special needs are slightly different someone who's mentally stigmatized a different race than the majority of the community are all reasons for people to be made to feel unwelcome or isolated and how can stigma affect us all negatively I mean it's a very negative term but how does it really impact us and these are real-life examples that are actually very very sad and I want educators to take note I want caregivers and parents to take note in a recent article when an Islamic school teacher was assigned to a student who had ADHD attention deficit hyperactivity disorder she said the boys condition wasn't slowed what the boys condition itself the ADHD wasn't what slowed down his progress the most it was his parents what slowed his progress were his parents and they were in denial and they wouldn't seek help for him for him even though he had a diagnosis of ADHD once another example another child with very disruptive behavior and low scores was removed out of his private schools fifth grade class in South Carolina with medication to improve and to improve his focus and his behavior they allowed him to return back to class they followed what they were supposed to do in order to reintroduce him back into the classroom but on one condition he needed to have an aid with him throughout the day and you know what the parents were against this the stigma of the special needs or the learning disability label prevented them from allowing this little boy to return to class with an aid I mean just think about that that's what stigma does to people and how it impacts negatively when it comes to children one out of seven in public school are assisted by some form of special education that's a fact in the Muslim community many of these children are hidden or they're just not given the supports that they need these children do to lack of acknowledgement they go on just just under the radar so many professionals speech pathologists behavior therapists say that Muslim clients when they do have them are very shy to seek help they also don't want anyone to know that they're seeking help my brothers and sisters this is a huge disservice to your family member they are not getting the support that's available to them and the issue is often family pride the fear of society and the family name leading to denial and if any family member has any different need we don't talk about it and I urge you to change this dynamic a psychologist dealing with Muslim family once reported that a severe very obvious disability of a family member was completely denied and they insisted that it was a gym it was the evil eye and that someone else had cursed this person and caused this to happen the family saw no need for assistance or professional help these are real-life conditions and stories that we know of and some feel that the special need of the disability is just a phase oh it'll go away and they'll grow out of it this is eventually and this is denial too it's even worse worse if it's a female with special needs in that case it's a social stigma the biggest fear if people know she won't ever get married or others in her family won't get married when it comes to mental illness or disability it's often invisible and it can be hidden sometimes you wouldn't know if someone around you has special needs and especially when it comes to any kind of mental health disorder and they get ignored even more and they go on assisted sadly there's a rampant increase in mental illness in the Muslim communities because we all hide it and you all know someone I'm sure you do every single one of us know someone and we just cannot ignore for example a broken limb I mean you're gonna go to a doctor and you're gonna not can't expect it to heal on its own but we can't ignore depression bipolar disorder OCD these are all destructive and they need treatment to be resolved our community members you see they just want their loved one I speak on behalf of my own family to be like everyone else have friends be well-liked have a normal family look like and act like everyone else we have this notion of what ideal and perfect looks in society but that society itself dictates that definition and they also pass judgment did someone do something wrong to deserve this in their family is this a punishment that the family member is like this is that why there's shame about this because it comes from misinformation truly who is more perfect in a loss one of the Allah's eyes are we a love forbid saying that Allah made a mistake with these people this is a loss one of the Allah's creation in the most perfect form the way he created them how can someone be made defective I mean I'm not using that term loosely these are things people say what's wrong with him what's wrong with her no their understanding is defective their ignorance is hurtful and these individuals are here for a reason they're here to teach us all they're here to teach us the challenges of struggle of perseverance of patience they teach us unconditional love and the purity of the soul for those who've been around the population or serve or support the population and power the population of people with special needs we have people here even in the audience who work tirelessly in our weekend school programs and throughout our massages you know what I mean you know what I mean so many of them are also so sinless and pure and they're destined for Jannah inshallah is this our Dean does our Dean teach us to judge to isolate to excommunicate this is what the stigma around these subjects has done to our community members they've started hiding they're hiding the diagnoses they're hiding their loved ones and this is all the result of ignorance with that I just want you to know as I as I wrap up some of my comments and we go into the second part of our presentation I want you to know that Muslim Muslims understanding and helping special education needs again our founder Sheikh Omar Salaman myself the co-founder was born out of an effort to open up our communities to these beautiful often isolated groups of people at Muslim we strive to improve lives of these individuals and their families who are impacted by special needs through awareness accommodation acceptance these are the things we work towards we create programs and services to serve them and the lack of the nation so just a thought to leave you with as we stand here today young healthy vibrant Alhamdulillah we often don't think of disability or illness as something that can impact our lives unless it hits us so please know that this is not the case disability can be by birth it can be by illness it can be by injury it can be onset by age anywhere anyone can be affected and the numbers are growing me last summer that I protect us always I mean once in this situation our interactions our movements are dealings with everything around us can sometimes change in the blink of an eye I had this experience with my mother myself who became disabled and shortly thereafter passed away through an illness Muslim serves his population and you all can too in your communities in your masjid by getting involved and volunteering and being open-minded about some of the things we've talked about as well as reaping the rewards that come with it so stop the stigma and act like we are one reach out to others dismiss the ignorance and want for your brother what you want for yourself may Allah help us to create better inclusive communities and accept what is good from what we've discussed and forgive my shortcomings of my own I mean and thank you for listening and with that I'd like to hand it over to Hana Hanh Hanh is our operations manager at Mosin and she will share a little bit more information about our important programs and services thank you salam everyone I'm Hana and I'm going to tell you a little bit about Mosin and general disability awareness so the Mosin mission our main mission focuses on awareness accommodation and acceptance so we do awareness programs and different masjid around the country such as this one today once we create awareness in our communities of course we want everyone to have acceptance for this population and also have accommodations across the nation we were founded in 2014 by Sheikh Omar and sister Juhi who was just up here and I'm gonna go to a video quickly sorry we need you we need to be serving you because on the day of judgment just as you've been asking for inclusiveness into this room and into the massage we will be asking for inclusiveness into your palaces in general having a disability should not be a stigma it should not be a reason for these families to stay at home and stay quiet we want to show that we support them when it came to advocate on behalf of those with disabilities who advocates for them in the Quran Allah does directly because Allah loves those who stand up for those who can't stand up for themselves I am blind and I'm proud of it and my blindness has been the biggest blessing in this world my blindness has created my personality has given me resilience perseverance stubbornness creativity but most importantly my blindness has gotten me closer to my creator not everyone here could be an activist not everyone here can run an organization not everyone can stand here up on the stage but each and every single person in this room is here today because we can all support disabilities could be visible or invisible so we have to remember that just because we cannot see a disability in someone doesn't mean they don't have one people could have learning disabilities which are invisible or processing disabilities or mental health disabilities that you can't quite see so the types of disabilities as I mentioned they could be physical caused by an injury or by birth there could be sensory disabilities that could include blindness deafness or sensory processing where you know things can seem loud or too bright it's difficult for certain individuals to process that disabilities can be learning or developmental some examples of that can be autism down syndrome dyslexia ADHD there could also be mental health such as depression OCD anxiety but remember that Allah made all of these disabilities some important statistics so one in five people in America have a disability so that's 25 percent I'm sorry it's actually one in four now that's an updated stat in the US there are over 600,000 Muslims with disabilities so that's a huge portion of our population it's not just a few scattered families across the nation it's quite a large population that do have disabilities so everywhere you see red on this map is where a Muslim family has reached out to Muslim and filled out our needs survey they've told us on the need survey that they need support in their community so as you can see it's quite a bit of red on this map where there's families with disabilities reaching out for help and that are requesting that they want to be part of the community so types of disabilities that we've seen on our survey are listed on the slide so the top ones that you see are autism and developmental delay so what Islam says about disabilities are for example it is so important that you see the individual not a disability these people are no less Muslim and no less deserving they should all be part of the community they should be able to come here to our mosque they should be able to participate in community events come to eat the mass and like all the different prayers and be accepted I'm gonna go to another video really quick oh I'm sorry Assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh this is Omar Sulaiman you know this is truly a dream come true just to be a part of a promo about Muhsin after all these years of planning and getting it together and you know just envisioning subhanallah what it would be like for the Muslim community to have an effort an initiative that goes out there and remosks you know an often forgotten group of unmasked individuals and unmasked families in fact that have people in their that have you know children that have people in their families that have these special needs and that have these disabilities assalamu alaikum my name is Arshay Ali Khan and today I'm here to talk to you a little bit about my brother I want to take this time to talk to you about my daughter Serena who is much less six and a half now and she's a bright loving kind fun child who has this great toothless smile right now that she lost her tooth and she also has cerebral palsy Assalamu alaikum my name is Friyaat Tahir and I'm 15 years old and I have a sister named Mehreen and she's great at basketball she's a wizard the computers she loves to eat and she has autism spectrum disorder when I was 19 years old my brother was diagnosed with a mental illness an invisible disability at the time there was no community support or religious outlets that we could turn to for help so instead of being supported we felt alienated and shamed there are so many families that are affected by this in our community and we just don't see them subhanallah because they're buried away while we're enjoying our hulfabahs and we're enjoying our halakas and we're enjoying all the great activities in the masjid these families have been completely barred from the masjid and when they set foot in the masjid it's the most uncomfortable feeling in the world so for many families not we're not just talking about those that have needs and disabilities many families the masjid has become a place to resent because when they walk in there all they get are the dirty looks all they get are the you know go home sentiments rather than this is your home because the masjid is the home of every believer as the Prophet's life and I'm set we just need a little extra help we need a little extra support we need a little understanding but inshallah we can get there there's no reason not to it's not asking for a lot it's just asking for a little bit of a little bit of acceptance a little bit of sensitivity and I think an organization like mosin is the perfect vehicle to do that inshallah I pray for the success of mosin because had there been an organization that was around for us to connect to that provided awareness acceptance and guidance perhaps my brother wouldn't have been left alone perhaps my mom wouldn't have put herself to bed crying day in and day out perhaps families like ours would have had a place to go and people to support them through it I what helps me get through everything when we're going through a struggle with Mahreen is that thinking that Mahreen is an angel and if we hold on to a sinless angel like Mahreen inshallah she will like help us on the day of judgment and she will take us to Jannah inshallah and I I would like other people to feel the same inshallah through this through Muhsin we can begin to show ihsan to them and hopefully we can make the masjid more comfortable for them and they can make our day of judgment more comfortable for us by testifying on our behalf that we truly did ease the way for them one of the things that I like to think is when people see us outside as a family away from us and ignore us even a smile is charity smile at us there is a lot of families like us out there we all need to support each other and the families who are not like us need to step up and help help us out I have been blessed and honored to develop and work for the Oma Center a non-profit dedicated to empowering the lies of the underserved the alienated the disenfranchised the poor we provide education empowerment programs and basic need programs and with every person that I have fed educated clothed and served I pray deep down that there is someone out there doing the same for my brother okay so that was a few words from family members who have someone in their family with disability and how they feel about it we also asked families to fill out a survey and these are the results of showing is your family members excel showing their family members accessibility to masjid related events so you can see one being the worst which unfortunately is the highest and that's what we're here to change so what do families need so disability doesn't just affect the individual it affects the entire family it it's an intern it affects the entire community so what we need is awareness first in our communities we need to be able to talk about disability we need to be able to normalize it as just part of our community and that they're just regular everyday families who deserve to be here along with us we need to give physical accessibility such as ramps we need to also provide things like braille for on or have with those stations that are accessible to people in wheelchairs braille for on as I mentioned we should have ASL when it's needed if there is deaf members in the community you should definitely provide ASL for like hood buzz or lectures also captioning on videos is very helpful for those who are hard of hearing support groups so support groups could be for families caregivers who need someone to talk to it's really nice for them to be able to get together and have people that they can relate to support groups can also be for siblings siblings of children with disabilities they also need people to relate to and know that there are others like them there are other families like them weekend schools so Islamic education is a top priority for all parents not just parents with typical children people who have children with disabilities or learning disabilities also want their children to get Islamic education so that is a really big one and also you know children with autism or Down syndrome just as an example a lot of them cannot go into a regular Islamic school classroom they need different kind of supports so that that's a huge need on our community caregiving for example if you want to attend a lecture and you don't have anyone to take care of your children you need specialized trained individuals to take care of these kids so caregiving is a big need that families ask for I'm going to list out some of our most in programs that help with these so weekend schools so just as I mentioned parents want weekend schools we have provided 15 weekend schools across the nation they are run by a trained staff NTAs all the children have one-on-one supports and all the curriculum is adapted to their learning styles we have special needs Omrah so Mohsen every year takes a group of special needs families to Omrah many of these families never thought they could go to Omrah because they don't have the support that they need so Mohsen provides a volunteer for those families the volunteer will come and help the individual with special needs the volunteers are all Mohsen trained and they've been working with us for quite a while so those families are able to go to Omrah and enjoy that spiritual journey Masjid certification so this goes along with awareness and accommodation so Masjid certification includes physical accommodations like ramps as I mentioned before as an example accessibility to the prayer area but also awareness like events there's hot bars that discuss disability and bring it into the normal day-to-day conversation for our community caregiving we provide childcare for many events especially for Eve and other larger events convention so we have a lot of big conventions throughout the year is not an example of one mass is another example so we provide childcare at those conventions so that the families can come leave their children in childcare with trained volunteers again people who know how to take care of children with disabilities and then they're able to go and enjoy the lectures we also provide ushering and we provide ASL for different needs awareness such as like you know we do events like walks like a disability walk autism walk down syndrome walk and it's really really important for people to get involved especially from our community there's lots of ways you can join you can follow us on social media you can join our team you can sign up for volunteering on our website and lastly I'll leave you with none of you will believe until you love for your brother what you love for yourself thank you everybody okay we'll take any questions if anyone has any I think we have a couple questions here and if you have any questions online feel free to put them into the comments and we'll address those questions yes please go ahead so first of all I just want to say thank you so much for coming out it's just an honor to see you guys in person here thank you so much um I basically teach Sunday school for Mahsin and I'm so blessed you know to serve these students they are people of Jannah masha'Allah yeah so um we have um like I don't have any certain question for that because masha'Allah you guys are providing all the services for them and so the only thing that is we have can we we have a lot of students on the waiting list right now for Sunday school are we able to provide the classes for them online for a long term bit of time maybe continue doing online because that's how we get able to serve them in different places different areas and also we can do part of the picnics you know once a while to you know to support their physical activities and you know and so instead of like because sometimes you know we don't have enough classroom that actually accommodate more than six and seven students at the same time especially with the COVID with the situation right now yeah no excellent question um my sister Nahid was asking about the um the way to support like a waiting list of students and can we do online and virtual currently and um the number is I think we're up to almost 18 weekend school programs about 50% of them are online right now due to what we had to do in the pandemic um so they're online classes there are teachers online with the materials and the students sign in um we absolutely can accommodate more online classes um however the majority of the population when polled and asked said that they really prefer in person um as a parent of a student with special needs remote did not work for her so you have to look at each individual case there's some children who just thrive at it because they see their peers on the computer and all the little boxes and that's interaction enough for them and they follow the lesson so it's really a case by case basis and especially if there's an issue with space and accommodating in person and safety well absolutely rather than not doing the program um we will support online and we can actually have um perhaps some of our team back home jump in if we need to um we have a school coordinator we have a lot of TAs and we can do that for sure um inshallah the idea is just to keep the momentum rolling what we did at most in during the pandemic was just like many of us had to do we had to pivot we had to figure out how do we keep these programs running because you don't just shut down you just improvise and alhamdulillah almost all of our programs were able to continue um and we found ways to do it you know for those who need it mashallah thank you so much and one last question that I really want curious about it is volunteering and also providing services for our own right hedge how this actually process goes can you please explain we have an extensive volunteer training program there are modules and modules that we put people through for volunteer training we background check we use a third party outside who background checks the references of that individual before anybody can uh volunteer with umrah what we do specifically is we look at has the person been active with mosin throughout the year so like a first timer who wants to volunteer would not be placed on that umrah trip it would be someone who's been with us and is known to us and has a proven track record of being able to support uh individual child or adult with special needs if they have adult experience we would pair them with an adult if they have experience with children it would be done that way and they are selected based on an interview process and there's preference given to those who have been to umrah before yeah thank you and for an update on our umrah trip for this year it's still pending we have not secured a package we were planning for december this year uh for various reasons for the ease of the group um we feel it's very safe we just our team just returned from umrah masha'Allah they're doing a great job but the plan for this year seems to look like it's going to be pushed out a little bit but inshallah when we do it we'll get it right when the time is right just a cloth hair that was very insightful presentations so thank you for that so the points well taken of everything if you're a medium size or large masjid but i used to be involved with the masha'Allah very small masjid we had barely 50 people here and we're just barely keeping up with with all the congregation needs and so if we hear oh we need to take care of the special needs in that community we're thinking automatically we're thinking oh we don't have any in the community why should we focus on this like we can't be everything to everybody this is the kind of thing that goes there because you're just trying to barely uh the wolf is at the door usually so speak it to because we have 2000 plus masjids around the country a lot of them are pretty small just barely getting on with volunteers and a volunteer board directors can you speak to those mosques and see why is this important to them because so often i think especially when i was involved there i was thinking oh yeah this is a problem for those big mosques who are actually like the regional mosques this is something they should do but for us we're just a tiny little mosque you know this is not really important to us and if and if everyone and i can understand why you would say that but if everyone felt that way this population wouldn't get served you believe me when i tell you out of the 70 certified masjids it's often some of the smaller ones knows to the ground working hard on few initiatives they're the ones that are becoming more welcoming the large centers bureaucracy red tape getting things passed through the board is often more difficult so it's those who have more control at the smaller level who can do things and i always say i tell my team this all the time bite off little bite-sized pieces you don't have to do everything all at once if there's one person that comes to the community and says my brother is deaf what can you do don't think oh my goodness you know we're a small masjid how are we going to handle this get online shoot us an email we will pay a sign language interpreter to come to your masjid we will find them across the country and we will send them for whatever days friday hook buzz special events whatever you need do not let budget run anyone down we are a non-profit organization with our meager means alhamdulillah from community donations we turn that money back out into the community so where there's a will there's a way we don't want people to feel that there's big stumbling blocks i need an entire committee of people as a small masjid we can't do this it's like a headache think about the baraka that's going to come into your community when you're able to include that one person and the good will that that brings and the exposure that brings to your congregation your musallis who are going to be surrounded by this beautiful individual some of the most beautiful interactions with people come small scale in a small setting in a smaller group when you get to know them and so um as difficult as it sounds we'll do the work for you if you're a small masjid then you're listening if you're from a smaller community and you're thinking this is just for those big name brand name masjids this is not true and we would be more than happy to work with smaller sized centers we will do the work for you if you say well we have a few hardworking people they just want some training we'll be the first to come out and train them so uh weekend school if you have two children in the community we will sit down and draft a program individualized for those two children because every single person matters you make that change in one person's life and it means the world to them it may be like a drop in the bucket for your community but it's it's huge and it can be done very easily so i would encourage people to not think well that's the big centers because it really truly is not and it can be done by every community do you have anything to add or is that you know yeah okay one more question so uh so we check the box as a medium-sized masjid we're most uncertified now so we have a person that's that's kind of there we get to this passive mindset then we're like okay well let's wait for them to come if we build it they'll come to us it's kind of that mindset because you know we're dealing with a lot of other stuff so how do we be proactive especially during covid i found that maybe i was under depression at least that you know a lot of the special needs families were kind of being shut in because they don't they're immune immunocomparized they don't want to be out and about what what can we do for them like we didn't even bother the usual iftar or the usual gifts that we get for the for the special needs families because we just assumed and you know when you make an assumption you know what happens and we just assumed they're not going to be coming out anyway and they don't want to come out and they will probably don't want any interaction with us there so speak to the the pandemic if you could for a moment and see tell us like what we could have done so we don't know what's going to happen in the future if if there might be a shelter in place again what what can budgets do to to reach this population if we have something like that or similar to that yeah that's a that's a great question and and definitely definitely people with special needs were on even more high alert those who were medically fragile those who had immunocompromised conditions um and the thought of someone with special needs to add to everything else you know catching this pandemic was terrifying for for most households um along with obviously everyone else one of the things that I can say about that is it you know a drop off of food delivery we suggested to some of our musjids during Ramadan you know what just make little boxes and drop them off outside you let someone know you're thinking of them so that's a solution that's a way it's a no contact kind of thing um and you know musjids are really good about getting on the phone and calling people for donations so you know what the same people can do they can get on the phone and this is really simple and I'm not trying to be funny I'm really being serious that you know you could get on the phone and put like a phone tree together and just you know split up families and say I'm calling from MCC East Bay and I'm calling to see how your family is doing do you know how far that goes that goes really far when a good friend calls just to check in on you son's attacks just to check in on you it means so much and you know even if that person had been thinking they were forgotten or isolated they suddenly got this warm feeling that somebody thought of me so it could be a simple phone call it could be a card in the mail for Eid we actually had an Eid drive-by I think the Bay Area did one this Bay Area chapter including MCC East Bay which again was a safe way to kind of just wave and say Eid mubarak and give a goody bag these are all things that meant a lot and going forward inshallah we won't have to deal with the situation again and may Allah protect everybody from ever having to go through what everyone went through but knowing and what we learned was that need for social interactions always going to be there so you know how do you plan and prepare for that you have beautiful weather here in this part of the country you know you know I'm talking as a Chicago and you can do a lot more things outdoors and you can do things safely and we've actually all had some good training now we know how to do things safely so inshallah I urge you not to forget that community and not really overthink it either I think it can be done pretty simply by you know acknowledging people and it sometimes it's just you know it's just a phone call sometimes it's a quick poll on an email that goes out sometimes it's just a check-in what I love about MCC East Bay is oftentimes you'll see the newsletter come out on email and it'll say for special accommodations for any requests for accommodations contact that's all it takes we have a team member here with us from Team Austin she's in charge of one of the Midwest musjids and on every flyer that the musjid puts out it says for special accommodations for this event contact and there's an email and if you are even thinking of trying to access that event you have a way to do it it's literally one line that goes on the flyers shout out to Mecca Center in Willowbrook Illinois so that's what I just want to say that they're very simple things that can be done and inshallah we can learn from this experience that we've all had Jazakal Khair I'm sorry I'm hogging the mic but I have one more question so this has to do with discomfort and sometimes discomfort is healthy so I found when we did the special needs iftar and we invited our special needs children into the prayer hall the worshipers some of them were very excited and very you know embracing this was pre-covid embraced them and and did all this and then there was the discomfort there was obvious discomfort because some of them were making noises some of them were we're coming into the prayer hall with their wheelchair and you're wondering okay is that wheelchair clean now is our prayer even going to be accepted because it's been going around the parking lot and now this wheelchairs I could see the the the thoughts in the thought bubbles around some of our regulars because it's a very new thing it's very novel the the culture sometimes that we come from this is somebody who you kind of put away it's an embarrassment to the family so to have them in this you know main you're on main street here in the prayer hall and they're sitting there and I could see the discomfort so can you speak to that discomfort and how what we could do about that yeah I mean it's very cliche but it goes back to this enough the Prophet Salaam did he turn people away from the masjid never he embraced them one of the the centers that I know they had a young child with Down syndrome he just grabbed the mic and went up to the mimbar and they allowed him to do that and it was really quite beautiful it's it's being familiar with the unfamiliar it's going through that experience the I take that back to the leadership of each of those masjids if the masjid has gone to the trouble to become more since certified which many mashallah have that would take a two minute disclaimer today we will be having some guests from our community who are not guests they're members of our community actually and please note every single person here is happy to have them and welcome them if you have any questions please approach the families ask them questions and that's how you break down that barrier that's how you become familiar by just asking the question um and yes there are masjids that have talked about wheelchairs with us we've said you can put just like you put paper towel dispensers up in different places just like you put hand sanitizers you can have a dispenser that has wipes and I've seen people pull them down clean the wheels I go back to the hadam because we talk about Umrah and Hajj so much and we actually yes so we we should wrap up because it's time for Isha but inshallah those are some suggestions to wipe down the wheels thank you so much for having us thank you