University of Ottawa students Nora Abdalaal, Tuba Yousuf, Jawdat Saleh, and Nour Khalaf, have raised enough funds to provide meals for a number of people at the Ottawa Mission this Friday, June 24th.  Volunteers are still welcome to get involved to help with preparation and distribution.

Muslim Link interviewed the students about their “Break Your Fast with Charity : Feed the Mission” Ramadan initiative.

The University of Ottawa’s Social Wellness Club has joined a Group of Five to privately sponsor a Syrian family. They are crowdfunding $5,000 over Ramadan as their contribution to this joint effort. Financial contributions can be made online here.

Muslim Link interviewed the club members about their initiative.

“Racism in the Ummah”, a short film by a group of students from the University of Ottawa, received an Honourable Mention at the University of Ottawa Muslim Students’ Association (UOMSA) Film Festival in February.

The Awakening: Reviving the Spirit of Somali Youth Conference has grown into an annual event that celebrates the achievements of Somali Canadians while also providing a platform to discuss community challenges. The conference returns for its fifth year on Saturday, January 30th. 

Modest Muslimah is crowdfunding to make their programs accessible to all young Muslim women. Muslim Link spoke with Nayaelah Abdussamad Sedeke about how she has created a space to empower and inspire Muslim women in Ottawa. A student at the University of Ottawa and an aspiring entrepreneur, Nayaelah co-founded Modest Muslimah to fill a social gap she and her sister identified.

Camp Inspyred is back for another year, offering young Muslim women from Ottawa a unique camping experience. Registration for the Camp is currently full but fundraising is ongoing in order to ensure that campers who require financial assistance to attend the camp can be covered. Muslim Link interviewed the Camp Inspyred team about their vision, their fundraising, and their plans to further develop their initiative in the future.

The IMPACT initiative is multi-partisan, grassroots project based in Toronto, whose aim is to educate Canadian Muslim youth in the political process and its vital importance, provide training in how to get involved on-the-ground, and empower them to recruit and lead their own team of volunteers.

The deadline for their fellowship for Canadian Muslim youth between the ages of 16 to 25 who wish to be involved during the Federal Election is Wednesday, July 22nd. You can apply online here.

Muslim Link interviewed the people behind IMPACT to find out more about the fellowship and what they hope to achieve.

Assma Galuta, aka Asoomii Jay, 25, has been an active YouTuber since 2011 when she began doing hijab tutorials. “I saw a lot of my friends removing their hijab and it made me sad,” she explained, “They were just doing it to fit in with their Canadian friends and they would say ‘I don’t look good in a hijab’ or ‘I don’t feel welcome in a hijab’. I started my YouTube Channel because I wanted to show girls that they could still look pretty and feel pretty and be stylish and wear the hijab.” Her channel became popular internationally with thousands of subscribers on YouTube and tens of thousands of Facebook followers.

Muslim Link caught up with the coordinators of this year’s Islam Awareness Week (IAW) at Carleton University. Carleton University Muslim Students' Association (MSA) members, Bangladeshi Canadian journalism student Radiyah Chowdhury and graduate student Arab Canadian Amr Daouk, ran the MSA's annual IAW from March 16th to the 20th in Carleton’s Atrium.

Born and raised in Montreal, Indo-Pakistani Canadian Navaid Aziz, 33, stumbled upon a vocation as an Islamic scholar when he was accepted to the Islamic University of Madinah in Saudi Arabia at 17. Now an imam in Calgary, Aziz will be coming to Ottawa’s I.LEAD Conference to discuss youth empowerment, countering radicalization in Muslim communities, and creating a balanced and just Muslim community.