lubabah's reply

this is the reply i recieved from lubabah "Asad! how are you doing? inshaAllah this email finds you in the best of health and a state of ever-increasing Iman and Taqwa. alhamdulillah i'm doing well and so is my family.. it has beena while... i was going through finals for a couple of my classes (i'm in egypt now studying arabic.. so hard finals:-), basalhamdulillah khair.. before i start to talk about MYNA, i would like us both to take a minute and re-new our intention for getting involved in reviving MYNA and for us to remember that it's an issue that's bigger than us and involves the entire muslim community and all spectrums of the community.. what i'm going to write is going to be a mix of things from talking about what has happened and what i feel should happen or be done and sort a combined... so after all that i'll start, bismillah.. i've talked to hana a number of times while i was still involved and afterwards about what was happening and what needed to be done, etc. and i agree w/her on a lot of things.. i feel that we went through a lot of motions w/o really thinking about it properly and preparing properly.. like w/hiring the office staff. we had some things down, but at the same time we had no youth on our committee that could tell us if these things were relevant.. the fact that hana and i were the youngest ones involved and i had been out of high school for 4 yrs and hana for 2, is kind of scary b/c the entire dynamic of youth work is radically changing in many cities and states.. it’s moving from being masjid based to being school based, w/the formation of high school MSAs and such... one of the beautiful things about MYNA when we were young was that it was by the youth for the youth.. this seems as though it was a bunch of concerned elders who are just trying to think of a solution (and a lot of the solution are the same things that we did when we were in MYNA so many years ago, or things we wanted to do w/myna).. I think ideally in the future we can have separate functions, like an adult (or older ppl plus some youth) on a BOD (board of directors), w/an exec that is all youth w/1 or 2 older exofficio type ppl.. but until we have some more infrastructure and groundwork done I don’t think that will be possible.. monem, jazaahu Allahu khair, took something that we had all been thinking about and contemplating and put it into action by getting us all involved and starting us off w/mtgs and such which was good.. but at the same time he was running it like a corporation, which is good and ideal, but at the same time that's not the way islamic work has ever been in the states,esp. not in the beginning of it, and that’s the phase that we were at.. another problem I saw and had, was that at times I was the one informing hana of mtgs and of the fact that an office staff was hired, etc, and she as acting president of myna, so nothing should have been done w/o her consent…. some ideas or suggestions for the future that I’ve had and thought about (being in egypt away from everything, you have alotta time to thinkJ: First off, I’m not sure who is on the board of advisors right now, but I would suggest that we add variety to it.. ppl with different backgrounds, some who weren’t involved in MYNA, maybe MAS or YM, maybe they weren’t involved w/youth work when they were young, but now they ‘re doing a lot of work w/the youth. And that we also add youth to the committee.. a lot of youth from different backgrounds and levels of involvement… even if we just form a separate committee of additional youth that don’t have the time or level of commitment to just bounce ideas from.. have them all on a yahoo group and once a week or a month, before taking on any event, just email it to them and be like what are ur thoughts.. this is in addition to the youth on the actual BOD. Second is to check out the msa national student union (website). One of the threads on there is for high school MSAs.. they are a lot of issues that students have brought up and a lot of events that is happening for youth work, that u should be aware of and trying to help with and possibly build upon. Like there’s a conference this weekend in MI, and there’s a camp in new mexico in june.. etc. that we should be aware of and ideally helping outw/. Third, have focus groups at ISNA or any conference where there will be youth (I know the isna cz conf is coming up in stl at the end of may, perhaps start there). Offer a questionnaire and food. Cuz right now we’re all building on the assumption that myna is good and is what needs to be brought back to address the problems of the youth.. maybe our base assumption is wrong. The only way to find out is to talk to the youth. We should do this at conferences and also pick 20 or 30 random big cities and find contact ppl that could administer this questionnaire there.. and we can also put it up online and through the student union high school forum.. the biggest thing that I’ve noticed right now, is that high schools, seem to be moving from the masaajid (and myna is a masjid based organization) to starting and forming MSAs in their high schools. Maybe the real solution is not to work on having a natl myna, but work w/these msa’s in the high schools… The last thing, is having myna advisor training programs. A lot of times, if the masjid has a youth group, they just assign anyone who shows interest, or anyone who seems to have a good relationship w/the elders to this position.. and that’s the worst thing.. not everyone can do youth work, and we need to work w/those ppl who are doing youth work to help them do their work better (in the future, if we continue and have a BOD and exec for myna, this can be something that the BOD does), execute training programs for youth advisors.. and these ppl will be our best references and workers. k, first, know that these are not in any order.. I’m sorry for going off onto tangents and talking about a lot of random things.. . I hope that some of this makes sense and helps and if u need me to do anything (I’m usually much better w/my email), please don’t hesitate to email me. I’ll inshaAllah be back in the states by the end of May, in time for the isna cz conf in stl…if any good comes from this email, it’s from Allah(swt), and if anything negative comes it’s only because i am under the influence of the shaytan and insha'Allah i pray that we're all guided to wisdom in some form or another.. jazaak Allahu khair for taking this on.. lubabah"