 A Founder's Lens A Physician's Lens Through the Lens of Inclusion A Perfectly Imperfect Lens The Lens of our Ummah as One Body A Lenge Aana Through the Lens of Compassion A Volunteered Lens An Empowered Lens A Come On Outside Lens A Caregiver's Lens Through a Lens of the Relative A Sibling's Lens A Lens That's Defend See Mohsen through all of our lenses Support each of our views of a better community for all My central nervous system so everything below my chest down is completely paralyzed This happened the last day of Ramadan so you can imagine my whole family so every community were in shock when they learned about my accident to see hundreds of people at the hospital to run for my concern and see my well-being was quite amazing so that's why I decided to talk about relationships and I noticed that we have a translator to our side so I'll try to speak as slowly and then say it as possible So with relationships I like to begin my journey here so I don't have a car so I asked my neighbor to assist me to borrow their car for me to come here and they accepted and as I parked here my chair was in the trunk it was completely set up so I couldn't take out the chair on my own so I called brother Baneer to have some volunteers to come assist me to take out the wheelchair from the car to get new bonds in relationships from those two three brothers that came out and when I came inside the Masjid I met brother Muhammad and his beloved mother who were very eager to assist me in the Masjid prayer hall because since it's carpet they were volunteering to assist me with transporting me to and from the prayer hall to this room that is just many encounters of relationships that I had just within the four hours and of course there's a lot much more than outside the Masjid since I focus on the Masjid I'm obviously going to interact with each other after this meeting so I'm hoping that everyone is test so everyone is not shy enough to come to us and speak about your life, your relations your personalities because here we are doing just that we're exposing each other to you two do I do all of it? and so since I've talked a little bit about the Masjid we have the opportunity to come here and discuss what we think is working well what can be changed and other comments that we can think of for me I've seen so much changes in this already I've seen changes of the infrastructure of the Masjid I've noticed the bathrooms have been very accessible to our wheelchair users I've noticed that there are shoes not in front of the entrance way for us to easily maneuver the handicapped stalls are wide enough there's even a disposable bin inside for us to throw away any medical tools that we use so a lot is in private so it's really nice to see that we're not exposing certain medical instruments that we use for us to live our lives so kudos to the Masjid we love to see that you guys are paying attention to us outside the Masjid of course as somebody who has two part-time jobs trying to find time to be a function in society I have now established myself as an employee for Avgan Coalition and an employee for Apple so one is profit one is non-profit the fact that I'm in both worlds trying to create a healthy life for myself as well with my coworkers and peers how I live my life because we're not just tools in this society we are human beings so I like to share a lot about myself to the community hence as you can see I've already discussed to use something very important in my accident typically it's not very normal for an individual with disability to talk about their disability right off the bat it takes a lot of security self-esteem and what's the word I'm looking for for us to talk about this because we are really living the trauma that we experienced so long ago that changed our lives for us to accept this to talk about it it's very empowering the fact that I'm up here talking about it I hope to see the generation or the audience that are out there to come up here and talk about your own stories too because in the end it's a relationship it goes back and forth and my other thing I like to talk about is I am very eager look at my notes I apologize is friends having friends is something very important in our lives any human being should have a friend family a mother a father can be friend grandmother you know anybody with blood ties can be friends neighbors can be friends and your schoolmates can be friends but it's very important to have friends around your age too so I understand parents are very concerned of their safety for their children when they are out doing recreational activities for example I am partaking wheelchair basketball there is even a youth wheelchair basketball team in Berkeley and so to see kids out there with many types of disabilities whether you're amputee this is one eye where if you have one arm whether if you're paralyzed like me we all come together and do a particular task like wheelchair basketball we set aside our differences and we just work together and try to compete with the other team the best thing about this is we get to step outside of our home environment and we're into a different environment where everyone can relate to one another something that sometimes can be very upsetting for families because the jokes can get sometimes very insensitive but somebody who has a disability and can easily laugh about it with somebody else is something what I call a healthy coping strategy now I know sometimes it can be offensive to some but it's a very normal experience for those who are in this type of environment another thing I like to discuss about is our neighbors of course somebody who I live in my own right now with my parents blessings and for me to get to know my neighbors it's very important to me because anything can happen to me of course my mother is very concerned about my well-being that I live alone for her well-being I turn on my location so she can see where I am 24-7 my little brother is very upset about this but I had learned that I taught her about this on her phone but in the end it's relationships creating healthy relationships so my mom is comfortable just to check up on me to see where I am if I'm home but with my neighbors it's very important because there are times where I receive packages that I can't send to my room and so a neighbor of mine just unexpectedly just grabbed the packages brought it in front of my door and knocked in front of my door I didn't have to say anything can you please help me but the fact that I introduced myself to my neighbor he knew about my disability and I knew about him more about him and his personality it became a relationship and I find that to be very priceless because not everybody is willing to help but for those who are wanting to help it's a good sight to see my other topic that I'll lastly discuss is the Masjid of course I did spoke a little about it the peers, the leaders and of course the people who helped clean up the place everybody is part of this team we're all here together, we're all equals we're all on this one journey trying to win Janna of course and for us to share each other's lives to get to know one another, our community I believe is the first step for us to get to know one another to be part of the Ummah and expand that hopefully in the name of Allah once again my name is Mayada Zaidani from Family Resource Navigators so this is Mayada Zaidani and she's a coordinator for Family Resources yes who is our organization Family Resource Navigators it's a non-profit organization it's a human organization it serves county organizations and county contractors it's easy, it's easy any family with a child or even bigger than a child it's difficult to get in a long process to get the resources so our goal is to make it easy for the parents and for the children to get both social, economic and medical so she runs a non-profit organization and it is held in both Alameda County along with Contra Costa County and they work with parents with helping parents ease the to gain resources whether it's health resources or educational resources to help the development and education of their children so they specifically work with children who either struggle with late development or cognitive late development or late development in general with the body and finding speech delay autism it's been running for 25 years and it serves many different populations whether they be Africans, Chinese Arabs, Westerners etc so they try to connect special needs children and families with the research social, health and cognitive resources that can help them in their development so their resources are all free they focus on maintaining the privacy of the patients and a free privacy privacy privacy so they don't look at the social status or financial status of the patient they're completely free and they focus on privacy so so they focus on Contra Costa Alameda County but specifically Alameda County and they focus on empowering parents especially parents who are coming as refugees from other countries and who don't know what their rights are they educate them on their rights and then they further help them plug in with the resources and stand up for their rights here in California so the families who come here to America will be having a hard time whether in language or education who have more than a child it won't be easy at all so we'll be there so that we can connect with the child or the family and the resources the free financial services such as Social Security Income and the IHSS also how to educate the child with the educational services so many families and children who come from abroad they really struggle with finding the right educational system and resources available so what the sister's work focuses on is basically making the connection connecting these families and these students with the resources that they need and the education systems that they need in order to flourish here in the States we also really focus on helping parents and families especially these children accept the fact that they might have a special needs child because a lot of them will struggle with just that first stage of accepting it and then once they're able to accept it then they help support them by connecting them with the resources needed so okay so for young children who are coming from abroad they usually struggle with fitting into social circles here in California so or just in the west in general so their parents help so the parents place them in these programs which help them just play and get familiar with the environment and society before they enter the full schooling system and then they also offer training classes for parents which focus on which is a special education for the kids who have special needs yeah yes as I said not only for the parents who have special needs but also for the parents who have a doubt that their child might have a special needs because as we know, for example, from the first or second year it doesn't show the child so until the father or mother know that their child has a special needs child we continue to interact with the families who direct us we continue to interact with them in this age how should the child have skills are these skills suitable for a less or more age so we help them to have special needs so we know if they need help they also offer help to parents who are not completely sure if their child is a special needs child or not and so for example with autism it might not be detected until a few years until their child is a few years old so they'll help slowly guide the parents with finding different signs and then if they do detect autism or any other special needs then they'll basically offer them with the resources that can support them Family Resource Navigator deals with all the institutions that serve the children and special needs they interact with them we connect with each other and even if there is a possibility to provide services quickly like the Respet Service the Social Security Income Legal Assistant all these services social economic medical the subject is very complicated to get a child or a person on medical services so it needs to be done from the special needs from the medical needs from the educational needs and reports and so on so we can do anything to make a family resource navigator with other institutions so Family Resource Navigator they try to work with all of the different organizations here in California that can support the child at any level and what is special for them we connect with Arabs directly because they don't speak English and we help them we explain to them how they can get family services and we help them in the process we help them they don't know about it so we help them then we help the person or the family for the special needs so since they are fluent in Arabic they also work on helping families whose children don't know the English language so they help first teach them the English language then also connect them with the resources that they will need and all the documentation that is required to get the service exactly yeah when we have mothers and fathers as I said we focus only on the child and the special needs we focus on the mothers and fathers so we work together to support the group we support them in a way monthly or weekly so that we can support them and we also support them they also run groups so they will meet a special needs it's almost like a special needs community and they will meet on a monthly basis more so and they will collaborate and share thoughts and support one another so that's another offering that they during the COVID-19 we also worked with the family we worked at home but we didn't leave anyone we gave the services to everyone we worked with the institutions the first period of the corona was very late because all the institutions the civil society and human rights we still didn't know how to work well but we continued with the family and the support was on Zoom and we provided them all the resources to get food, to get psychological support to get medical resources and the other resources that were available before the corona so with COVID things kind of took a stand still and came to a stop however they continued to run their community their special needs community meetings via Zoom and they offered the help that they could whether it was health lives or emotional well-being help that they could offer online via Zoom so basically they didn't let COVID get into the way as much as possible so this is all thank you so much and please if you need anything you can contact me I will put my information here so if you know any okay this is our website www.familyresourcenavigators.org and this is my number 5107591004 so if you know any family who had a special need or they need any support please contact us any questions? Assalamu alaikum alaikum assalam you mentioned that you've done special needs groups on a monthly basis do you have those list of groups and what time they happen you mean support group? yes sure I have just my list and the Arabic support group so I can continue with you of course to see what language you are you are speaking so I will contact you with the other parents of course and this is the email also but yeah info at www.familyresourcenavigators.org I think you can take a picture of the screen inshallah if you need to other questions? yes I was wondering sorry I was wondering in terms of communication if people aren't good at English do you help them with Arabic and English and then kind of like guide them around but you know these various services so you do the linguistic accommodation as well yes it's easier to say Arabic yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah . . . . . . . . . . . . So her family resources organization, it welcomes all languages, however she just focuses on the Arabic department but if you get in contact with them depending on which language you would like to communicate with they have that available. So could I ask, is the question more so how can he improve his English language or is it just if the website has an English option? You can help people directly in Arabic as well then, right? In sign language. No, in spoken Arabic. Yes. So she's part of the Arabic team so she would be able to do that for sure. Hello. Hello. We're honored to have you here. Thank you. I would like to ask you a question that I don't know and I have a problem with. Could you help the people who are moving? I want to ask them about the programs that service dogs provide. Do you share your experiences with them? Of course. I haven't talked about this because not all Muslims like to have... I was asking her if they can help people with special needs to apply for a service dog. For me as a person on a wheelchair, I've been struggling a little bit finding the right organization. I've spent a lot of time doing research online. Unfortunately, I'm going to say it, but that's what I find. Most of it is scams. I don't know what's the right organization should I go for. Of course, that's true. I don't know. I'm going to submit all my documents, my private information, my self-information and all that. I think it's very important to know where you're getting your... Where are you going to get your information? Honestly, our organizations support this. Like I said, I haven't talked about this because not all Muslims like to have dogs or dogs. But do you realize that our manager is also the founder of this organization? No. I mean, he's the founder of our organization. So, if you can contact me, I will contact you with her. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. Subhanallah. Thank you very much. So, she said that their whole organization works on supporting people and supporting the needs that they have. And I think her director actually focuses on offering. Yes. The dogs. Yes. Service dogs. Service dogs. That's perfect for the brother here who is requesting that. So, if any of you have any specific needs that you're looking for, feel free to, in sha Allah, reach out. And they'll be happy to help you. Yeah. And please, if you know any family. Please, if you know any family who need our support, who need our service, please tell them about us. And we are very happy to give them a service. Beautiful, masha Allah. Salamu alaikum. Salam alaikum. Thank you. He was in the fourth grade, and he said that he was just a kindergarten student. They put him in a private room, and he needed all the difficult things in it. They put him in a private room, and he said, this is the only solution. Honestly, I wasn't interested in him. He always took care of his job, and he said that he wasn't very good at it. He was very good at it, and he was very good at it. But he wanted to do it alone, with a group of people. Now, I don't know, I asked him to come back to my page, but he wanted to help me. He didn't want to answer me, so I said this to him. I don't know what he did, what he did, what he did, what he did. Let me translate for you. So the sister is saying that they actually just came from Jordan a few months ago, and her son goes to a school here in Fremont, and he's measure of well-functioning. He just has very minor autism, and so he struggles with focusing, I think, with writing. So he just needed some support resources that they were planning on getting in Jordan, but when he came here and he was struggling with that in school, they wanted to put him at a lower level. So they wanted to put him at a lower level, but she wants to keep him in fourth grade, but she just needs that extra support to help him really go to the next level, inshallah, catch up to the level of his peers. So she's asking if there's any help. We're here for you. We're here for you. I mean, you made it. You made it. I came here just for you. I swear. I want to tell you something. Language is a place that never used to exist, and you're new here. We're just here for you, especially those who speak Arabic, because you're coming to America, and you don't know anything about it yet, a new culture for you, a new language. Now, after I'm done, I'll give you a phone number and all the information to communicate with me, because I'm going to start with you from zero. With all the services you deserve, not only for your son, may Allah protect you, but also for your family. And how? We'll start with the introduction. I'll tell you, inshallah, you'll take all the services, inshallah, and your son will be safe here. But the problem is, how do you want to get this service? It's available for the Arab service. So, inshallah, I'll help you in all the options, whether it's about the life, what you deserve, and what rights you have, so that you know more about your son. In the school that I was talking about, about the IEP meeting, this is because your son will be in a special education, so he'll tell you specific rules. But I want to tell you something, and this is what I'm going to tell the Arab community. They want to know what the level of education is, and at least it has to be from 40 days to 6 months, so that your son is safe, so that they know what the right services are. I mean, you're not going to do it now. 2 months, wait a bit. So that they have a clear picture of his condition, not less than 6 months of study. So you're not going to do it, and I'm going to stay with you, and you'll get a lot of services, and so Allah. So Alhamdulillah, the sister said that she can definitely assist the sister from Jordan providing her with the proper resources. The issue was that her son was placed into a class where they were supporting children with severe autism, and so she wanted her son to be able to go to the next level since it was a very minor thing. And she just had to wait because they they need 6 months, 40 days to 6 months to get a clear idea of what is his issue, to evaluate him in the right way. So they need around 40 days to 6 months to have a proper evaluation of the child before they can know which grade to place him in. It's different in the schools, the teachers, the specialists, it's different from case to case. But she's in the right way. And she's in a good hand, of course. Alhamdulillah. So just a question. It so happens that I was living in Jordan for the last 8 years and recently coming back. During that time I had taken a sabbatical and just working with non-profit organizations. One thing I realized was when we went out there and I was working first-hand with refugees living in tents and everything they had gone through, the war trauma, what they've seen in their family. It's not only having a mental toll, it's having a physical toll on their health. How do you see art, especially for younger children playing a role in terms of helping them, helping them take out whatever pain and turning that into something positive? Yes. Just a question. Yes. It's going to be in the first place, depending on the situation that we're in, depending on the medical situation and the medical situation, we'll know where to send them or how to continue with them. So now, if they need for the family, if they can't get help from the community or the medical facilities that help them, we'll continue to search for them so that we can find them. Other than that, we'll send them to the people who can help them through these people. There are always resources in our community to help them find the resources to serve them, with the working support, any kind of support or any kind of services that they need. Everything is different, life is different, the place is different, so other than that, groups of support or groups of children focus on what services this child needs or what services the non-servant in this city can provide. I know it before but I will search about it if you want. We're also bringing in Avalani families so there are other traumas from different countries different places just to understand what's the best way, especially when they're younger and they keep everything bottled in and it manifests in other ways. We support them to focus about what they really need or what they are supposed to do. These things support the group and play group for the kids but for the adults I don't have any case about that but of course I will search about if you need it. I can comment a little. I didn't talk a lot about my agency so what I did for three years was I did a mental health project for the Yavin youth in Fremont since a lot of the kids are coming from Afghanistan I did a lot of new kids that were new to the area I did use art therapy, music therapy with parental consent but I made sure the parent wasn't there. Number one, expression when the family members there they're not able to fully express what they're really going through was for them just to simply express what they saw and how they felt and for me just to listen not even have no judgment at all so for them it's just an opportunity just to express and relive the situation to understand what they went through and it's not my duty to translate what it meant to them what the effects are just to let them know that it's not their fault they're just victims of society for now and there still will be since they're now in this new society so for me it was just to explain to them that the trauma is still within you and you are expressing it and then you're going to experience new trauma so try not to bury it with more trauma first try to resolve the issue and then tackle on the next thing and if you can't do it through words through it through art through music poetry any means that you can just to overcome that challenge Assalamu Alaikum so actually this is not a question for the sister brother Munir and first I want to thank you guys for having this event I know there must be this always open to our children and our families but today when I was sitting here I was like okay I can breathe easy if Muhammad is loud or you know he kind of tries to engage with the female nobody will be offended I will not be embarrassed and nobody will say hey what is your son doing so I just want to say that today was special because this event was being held but as a mother you know as somebody who wants to say you know Islam supports inclusion always it shouldn't be just for today it should be every single time so what does that mean what are the steps that we might need and I feel like maybe there can be in the khutbah maybe there can be a little bit more education for the community and it's not that you know they are insensitive it's just that they don't see the other side like you were talking about the lens the lens of the parent so maybe you know there could be a mechanism for families like myself who can submit thoughts or suggestions and maybe every few months there could be a talk about you know disability or aging or mental health to just empower the community to better understand and serve and then I wanted to ask you how big is your group of you know people with disabilities or parents who have children with special needs I mean for the masjid do we know thank you for the question so we began in 2016 on this journey of becoming a special needs masjid the first in California through mosin to become a special needs silver certified and basically what that meant is we got a brail Quran for the masjid we went to the bathrooms and did an assessment to make sure they're all wheelchair accessible and then we hired we found one volunteer to put it on every flyer that we are a special needs masjid if you need special accommodations you email us at this address and we will get either a sign language interpreter or special accommodations and the journey has continued every year so we do our Eid festival and so we always make sure that the Eid prayer we have a special canopy for our special needs families we make sure that the khutbah if it's needed for translation that we hire somebody to do that and we're working under the auspices of mosin which is in Chicago near Chicago and they're giving us information what has grown from that the lot has been an education for MCC because we didn't know the need really existed to the extent that it has so once the family start coming to us we've reached out and said we're gonna cover the east bay and now MCA has started their own group for the south bay and we've joined forces with them and we've done some special needs picnics and items like that as far as the numbers go it's not really certain but what I can do tell you is we have a special needs email list and that has 120 families on it so the number is pretty significant but that's just folks that we know of the unmasked special needs families we don't know about them and so we do have sister who's given us ideas of renovations and fixing things around the facility which we've done but beyond that we haven't been as forceful with the Khutbah for example which is an idea I'm going to take back to the religious committee and see if we can do a Khutbah every quarter or so on special needs being for special needs Jazakallah for that so the reason why I was asking that is to better understand the needs rather you were talking about relationships it's great that we have all these accommodations for people with physical disabilities but to take that argument or that thought about relationships further we need to strengthen the groups there have to be groups of people with disabilities for example like myself with boys or girls Mohammed's age parents with little children if there is a strong network then communities can have support groups here maybe you talked about sister, you talked about respite sometimes it's hard to get somebody to take care of your kids maybe through the masjid group we can get young girls and do babysitting as a volunteer and parents can get a break there are so many little things that can be done and my journey used to be much harder when Mohammed was younger and now alhamdulillah I'm in a position to mentor and guide so I just want to say that there's a lot we can do to build upon the steps that you guys have already taken and I would love to help I'm an attorney at adobe as a professional person and then I'm also on the board member of the regional center of east bay that's an organization that supports people with intellectual disabilities so if there's any way I can partner with you guys or sister with you because right now there's a huge focus with the organization on supporting inclusion and anything that we can do to help and collaborate that would be brilliant and any family over here that would like to speak with me or if there's anything I can help with I'm happy to I think more we're realizing that there's special cohorts in our community like the new Muslims that have unserved needs and especially needs is definitely one of them that we're learning more so I'd love to collaborate and chat with you a little bit more I just want to second what sister I have an 11 year old on the spectrum he's autistic and we've been finding that it's very challenging to bring him into the mosque we live in Auckland we came in just especially for this event we were in the picnic the last year because whatever is something accommodation for kids or families with special needs we are there because everybody got it unfortunately autism is a disability that you cannot see it it is something that people in the community unfortunately see it that when your son is flapping or he's jumping around your kid is misbehaving so I want to just also offer my help I've been advocating for my son for a very long time I have a lot of experience too advocating for its schools and I this process I know you sister last time I saw you last time I know family support network I work with them they support me they are very good organization to support any kinds of disabilities but also I want to second that as a community I would make more awareness about those disabilities that you can see I just have an incident a couple weeks ago in the mosque in Berkeley my son he's 11 years old and he has to come with me we have an iftar and one of the sisters told me excuse me you can't be here because he's 11 years old and he's supposed to go with the men and I say well I'm sorry I cannot send him over there I need to stay with him because I need to follow what he's doing so like sisters say I think if we start making this participate the community about there is disabilities that you cannot see but also teach them that you cannot judge and you can just go right away into the pattern American feel like it's a no good pattern because trust me it is very challenging and it's a very difficult question needs I'm in here too I would love to support Munsen please let me know I have you I'm in the and the email list so please I really appreciate that I think we're just scratching the surface of what the needs are in the community and how we can help fulfill it as a budget this is very novel to all of us we this has always been something that we're thinking day to day and it takes families like yours to bring blood or management or on the board of the trustees and we really appreciate that and let's talk right after this inshallah so we can make sure that we continue the momentum that we have tonight inshallah sister may I have a question please okay we have one more from Ahmad then I'll come yes so I'm going to ask you in English if you don't understand if I'm not able to speak Arabic but I want to ask you like how like is your organization like getting support from like a federal fund or how you get support and also can you mention please as a community how can we support this organization because I feel this kind of organization is so very important to have around and then also we want to you know keep it longer the first question and the second question is do you accept volunteers because you've been asked this question so many times from my American friend which is really nice they are willing to help and provide some service on their free time so that's the two question correct so when there is funding okay we have a project when there is no funding unfortunately we cannot but since three years or more I know you're in the translation I mean I used to work nine years nine years of work why did it appear that there are people in need of the Arab people so when they know that there are people in need of Arab organizations like the mosque that there are a lot of Arab people in need of help so when there is a need we accept any kind of if there are volunteers in need or they like to help and support us we have not only we support the organizations we also work with organizations we talk to them about how we are and how we can work together with anything else okay I'm sorry can I have a question thank you so she said thank you they basically respond to the needs that are present so for example the person who was in her role before she came into she was working for nine years in the organization specifically focusing on the Arab sector because in massage a lot of times there are Arabs who do need Arab support in Arabic so basically when they found that need they tried to remedy it another thing that she mentioned is that they try to always collaborate with other organizations so whenever there is an organization that they can work with they do so and they are open to volunteers I'm a democrat and a human right so anyone who has a need we are there but we are there to break the need of the language and to get the services in a better way did you ask anything else? I think the question is how the organization is doing as I told you there is no funding every project but if you have this organization and you want to work with us in this period we can put the director our director he is American so we can take the right resources and as I told you this organization is 28 years old so it's not a normal age it's not a normal age it's more than 2,000 years old it provides more services than 2,000 families as I told you as I told you we are in Contra Costa Contra Costa County so they focus on these families there the other question I remember is how can we support as a community how can we support this organization so she also mentioned that if you want to help support so there are many volunteering opportunities and also if you would like to support the organization just funding them would really be a help also just spreading the word with anyone that you may know who needs help that would be a help that would be a help that would be a help that would be a help who needs help that will also be a service we are not collecting funding funding from the other organizations not from the other organizations sorry that was my mistake just call the others about us spreading the word is what they would appreciate in terms of volunteering they have also so I also want to mention that they are not only located and providing service in Alameda County at Costa Costa they also have so many partnerships with other organizations so if you know somebody of these like Costa Costa or Alameda County just direct them to the organization and they get a contact with the other organization that they have a partnership with so that's what I want to mention thank you also they mentioned if there are any volunteering opportunities so for example with college students who would like to volunteer how would they plug in how exactly would they volunteer in the organization but as when coronavirus has come or COVID-19 we are just working from home so there is no outreach event or no outside event so for now we are working remotely from home but in the future yes sure just give us your information and we contact us hello my name is Koushila my son is 21 years old he is going to be 22 and I want to know what type of services I can expect to look for from any organizations you want to she has a son who is 20 and she is looking for any services that you can contact you can contact me directly and I will give you the information you need and I will contact you whatever service you are your services for over 18 for the adult also our organization not only for the the kids there is a lot of service so I will let you know how they distribute it how they distribute it yes from 0 to 5 years from 5 years to 15 years from 5 years to 18 years then from 18 years to plus so it is depend on your case your location and the age also so it is depend do you offer them educational support yes sure yes this is what we discuss on IEP meeting it is between us and the school district and also the parents or the adult to go to one more thing recently MCA started a Mawson program they have a separate room for babysitting for parents to do kiam and all so they are able to do more so is it possible for MCC also to start up something like that so that parents can get together once a month or twice a month as needed and my daughters are ready to volunteer with the special kids and we can get more volunteers for volunteer hours and we can form a group so once we meet we can get easily face to face rather than emails or anything because parents are they can't go through the emails very much they are busy with the kids so what we are going to do is we are going to send an email out but tonight we will have a shine sheet during our time if we want to start a group MCC is open and willing to host that space and publicize it so we will sign up tonight and we will get the list going there very easy to do do we have any other questions we are about 10 minutes away from our start time we have one more question so I was wondering are you involved in the administration of MCC are you the like the Imam or the leader what's your role he's the big cheese anyway before have you had any deaf people coming here or any much deaf participation at the Masjid there has been one deaf person that has come over the years there was a woman that moved here from Texas and we provided her a sign language interpreter but she moved to Sacramento shortly after she only one Juma we had provided her sign language interpreter we are most welcome if you ever want to have an interpreter we would be happy to provide that so my son is autistic and we have been getting we are approved from RCB regional center so we are approved for services from there but we don't get any services though we are approved they said we can get respect and we get ABA therapy from our Kaiser insurance but the copay is pretty huge that we have to pay so is there anything that RCB can do for us he's 7 years old sorry we live in Pleasanton he's 7 years old he has special needs special education so do you have social security income do you apply for social security income or not yet you can apply for social security income also you can get you said you have Kaiser Kaiser insurance so the question is do you have medical Kaiser or Kaiser okay so the problem is we help more or we get the service more for the the people who has medical because Kaiser they need that um he's a US citizen is that correct your regional center client and he's 7 is that correct so have you asked your case manager about something called institutional deeming so this is important you need to ask and is he significantly affected okay so that's hard because certain people they can get if they're significantly affected like they can get institutional deeming it's worth it to ask because these are people who are considered to have lifelong disability if he's a regional center client at the age of 7 he may be a certain level that would qualify for something called institutional deeming once he gets the institutional deeming you can qualify for MediCal based on only his income so before you do this make sure he has no savings nothing like that all of money is in your name with this institutional deeming they only consider the child's assets for MediCal and Social Security is a little different because they have to they will consider your income for Social Security but for MediCal they will only consider his income or assets once you get that institutional deeming you qualify for MediCal once you qualify for MediCal you try to find an ABA agency that takes MediCal and it's a little complicated this is my job if you reach this point this is my job so keep connected with me and I will follow up with you because if he had MediCal so everything is easier for me even if he's still with Kaiser I will show you how to get the service just keep me updated what's your name? Mozafer I know there's more questions in the room but I think the panelists will be available during and after Iftar but we're just 5 minutes away before we return to the banquet hall for our Iftar but Abdullah would like to end us in a prayer Inshallah Thank you for attending this is just the beginning of a long journey we all go through our journeys in life and we're here as a community to go on this journey with you and your family so please continue to keep us in your prayers and keep us in your advice where you tell us what to do for you how to serve you better and we'll be having Iftar in about 3 or 4 minutes so we have dates and water set for you in the banquet hall we'll have dates and water then we'll go to the prayer hall for families that feel more comfortable praying away from the Jama'at they're welcome to use this room the speaker system will go inside here as well so feel free to pray whatever you want and after that we have a special Iftar for you and special gifts for you in the banquet hall everybody's welcome please