In early December, local imams, along with other faith leaders, attended a workshop at the South Nepean Muslim Community (SNMC) mosque exploring the intersection of mental illness and the law. The workshop was presented by Connecting Ottawa as part of The Spirit of the Law, a provincial project run by Interfaith Initiatives for Civic Engagement (IICE) and funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario. The project aims to work with faith communities to ensure that people living with mental illness who come in to conflict with the law can receive support by ensuring that faith communities and legal professionals are taking a holistic approach to their care.

The first Voice of Muslim Youth provincial election engagement session took place on Sept. 10 at Ben Franklin Place. I decided to organize this session after attending the Voice of Muslim Youth's Town Hall Meeting in July, when concerns around the lack of Muslim political engagement were raised. I told Kauthar Mohamed, the co-founder of VOMY, that I had an idea of how to get Muslim youth interested in politics by showing them how the issues that concerned them most were linked to Canadian politics.

As the Ontario provincial election is taking place on Oct. 6, I felt there was a great opportunity to encourage Muslim youth to vote in the upcoming election by giving them the chance to meet and discuss their concerns with local provincial candidates. Thanks to the sponsorship of the South Nepean Muslim Community and the Ottawa Muslim Women's Organization, we were able to cover all the costs related to organizing this important event.

A sign on the land of the future site of a mosque in the Barrhaven area was vandalized with racist graffiti on April 30.

The South Nepean Muslim Community in the Ottawa area is planning to build a mosque on the 1.3 hectares of land at 3020 Woodroffe Ave.