Boston mosque looks to build youth program
While serving as youth director for a Knoxville mosque, AbdelRahman Murphy took a group of teens to a University of Tennessee football game. At sunset, Murphy tapped them on the shoulder: Time to pray. As his bashful charges watched, he asked a security guard whether the group could have a little space inside the stadium.
“On one condition,” the guard replied, as Murphy tells the story. “Just make sure you pray for the Volunteers.”
The teens got it, Murphy said in an interview this month: Don’t be shy about practicing your faith. And know that you can build bridges in surprising places.
The Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center in Roxbury has recruited Murphy, a 27-year-old mental health counselor and aspiring cleric based in Dallas, to work with teens and college students in Boston for three days each month over the next year.
New England’s largest mosque is trying to serve a burgeoning contingent of young members. But recruiting the right person to work with them proved a challenge, given the dearth of professionally trained Muslim youth educators who are conversant in American culture.
Murphy, who helped develop a youth curriculum in Dallas and Knoxville called Roots, made such an impression among Boston teens and young adults on a previous visit that mosque leaders decided to bring him back regularly.
“It’s an opportunity for us to learn more about youth work he’s done and begin to build a fabulous youth program here,” said Yusufi Vali, the Boston mosque’s executive director.
References :alukah
