Muslim Youth Foundation > MYF Open Day March 2015

MYF Open Day March 2015

The MYF opened its doors to the general public for an open day on Saturday the 28th of March 2015 with the theme of “Women in Islam”.

The open day consisted of exhibitions upstairs on the theme of “Women in Islam”, “The basic tenets of Islam” & “The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in Islam”. There were also general exhibitions about Islam in the downstairs exhibition hall. There was also a rolling 1 hour TV presentation on the same theme.

There were displays of Arabic calligraphy & henna hand painting as well as face painting for the children and a costume display stall showing the varied clothing associated with Muslims. There was hot food as well as a rest area with tea, coffee & biscuits. Mosque tours for the visitors were provided at regular intervals. Entry was free & anybody from the general public was welcome to attend. Volunteers gave out invitation leaflets to the passing general public on the streets near to the MYF & invited them to visit the open day.

Alhamdulillah, many non-Muslims came to the open day, the vast majority of whom felt that their visit had been a very pleasant & educational experience. MashAllah the number of non-Muslims attending was around 40 to 50 people – a much larger number than we have had in the past. We were honoured to have the deputy Police Commissioner for Manchester, Mr Jim Battle attend as well as the Reverend Jane Walker from Manchester Cathedral. We were also honoured to have representatives from the Greater Manchester Police force & Manchester City Council attend the open day.

The weather at the start of the day was terrible! (wind, heavy rain) but Alhamdulillah the weather cleared up in the afternoon so that the volunteers were able to go out & distribute the open day flyers to the passing general public to invite them into the MYF for the open day.

Jazak Allah khair to all the volunteers who helped out on the open day itself & to all the volunteers who attended the preparation meetings in the week before the open day, and the volunteers who helped set up for the open day on the day before the open day (Friday) . This help was critical for the success of the open day, Alhamdulillah. I would like to extend a heartfelt “Thank you / Jazak Allah Khair” to these volunteers as the open day could not have taken place without this magnificent & crucial help. Everybody worked very hard & a tremendous amount was achieved in just a couple of days, Alhamdulillah.

Very special thank you’s to the people in charge of the various stalls that we had set up on the day itself, and to the volunteers who helped create the exhibition displays on the themes of “Women in Islam”, “The Prophet Muhammad (pbuh)” and “The Basic tenets of Islam”.

The food at the open day was of excellent quality & I would like to thank all the brothers & sisters who made / provided / donated the food.

Special thank you’s to the brother demonstrating the Arabic Calligraphy & the sisters who did the henna hand painting & the children’s face painting.

Jazak Allah Khair also to the senior brother’s who helped out for the open day, Brother Imtiaz Hussain & Dr Abdul Aziz.

A special thank you to all the volunteers who stayed out distributing flyers & inviting people to come to the open day. MashAllah all the volunteers worked very hard & the relatively fine weather during most of the afternoon was a blessing, Alhamdulillah.

The open day could not have been possible without the great work of all the volunteers & I ask Allah (swt) to reward immensely in every possible way, everyone who helped out, mashAllah.

Special thank you’s & Jazak Allah Khair to all the MYF staff who worked tirelessly behind the scenes all day & to all the volunteers who helped clear up at the end of the day.

Open days are opportunities for the Muslims to showcase Islam to the general public & to build bridges with the local community. The open day allows for a face to face dialogue between Muslims & non-Muslims to tackle some of the many misconceptions about Islam which are prevalent today. The theme of “Women in Islam” was chosen because International Women’s Day is in the month of March each year & also to try to explain correctly this highly misunderstood topic. The theme of “The Prophet Muhammad” (pbuh) was chosen to highlight the excellent character of the Prophet (pbuh) in light of the tragic events in Paris earlier this year. “The basic tenets of Islam” was a new theme we wanted to trial this time round & Alhamdulillah we found that it worked very well.

Please feel free to send in your comments about the open day to me so that we can continually keep making the MYF open days a better experience for all inshAllah.

The next MYF open day will be at the end of September 2015 inshAllah.

The photographs from the open day are presented below.