high school MSAs

Lubabah wrote:
“Second is to check out the msa national student union. 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 out w/.”

* Absolutely! ...very early on, we decided that it was important for the MYNA advisory board members to personally attend any major youth event taking place at a driving distance. I presented a list of events we planned to attend at the April 2003 Majlis meeting, where we gave our first progress report to ISNA leaders. Our staff was to visit cities in between and find out what local activities the youth were doing and what they wanted from us. This is another reason why I don’t get it when told that “youth are not involved.” I’ve always asked youth what they think MYNA should do for them. There was a youth sports tournament in FLA earlier this year at which I passed out a survey. At the last Majlis presentation we did, we showed a list of all the events we attended from December 2002 till October 2003. But the board was dissolved by ISNA leadership in December and things faded out.
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She wrote:
“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…“

* I’ll get to the focus groups we were going to create in a little bit, first, Let me correct some wrong assumptions. I don’t assume MYNA is good. MYNA died out. Several of us are ready to walk away from MYNA and move on. Some of us already have. Also, we don't assume that MYNA was an organization for masjid youth groups only. Our assumption has always been broader than that. Lubabah kind of hints at it when she says “Maybe the real solution is not to work on having a natl myna, but work w/these msa’s in the high schools. “The key words are “work w/these...” So what is our assumption? I say it’s that: youth can gain benefit from a national organization dedicated to issues they face growing up Muslim in America.

And even though it’s vague, there are a few out there who assume that MYNA is identified by youth as an organization for youth (very general, not about masjid youth). There are also those who assume that it is not an organization at all (ISNA leaders). In fact our own local chapter of MYNA was not affiliated with any masjid, these days it works out of an islamic school. In fact MYNA has had no role in local youth work for a long time, except in small pockets, it is assumed to be all about camps and conferences (all talk/no action).

But I get her point. And she's right, there is a new dynamic of youth starting groups in high schools rather than at the masjid. It’s a good idea, and these groups need resources, maybe not the same resources as the masjid youth committees (which by the way still exist in most cities).

And she's right, finding out what high school youth group leaders need and figuring out the best way to get it to them should be a priority. And guess what, we DID make this issue a priority early on in our MYNA revival process (its in the strategic plan near the top of the list). A questionnaire for leaders and parents of these high school groups is a good idea.

Also when she says “put it up online” this requires an online presence, which we were working on establishing before things went bad. www.MYNA.org was going to be a place for us to get feedback from youth. I checked out MSA’s student union board, it’s a good resource, so is Islamica. And lets not forget the local youth group discussion boards or e-mail lists.

Speaking of MSA... When I was a local MSA officer, I wanted MSA natl to focus on building on its resources for local chapters. MSA natl was becoming irrelevant to me because it did nothing for me other than a conference here or there, If it gets into the business of doing activities for High school students it would become even more irrelevant. (except for providing mentoring experience)

Sure, right now there is no place for high schoolers to go. If MYNA is not to be revived and MSA is willing to reform itself to be an org for high school and college students, then MSA natl should propose a plan to ISNA on what it will do and it should get the resources it needs to be good at it. I’m down with that. Hey, many Masjid youth committees seem to be doing just fine without MYNA. True, MYNA can become a great resource for smaller cities youth, but the big city youth groups will do fine without it. They have been for several years now.

Anyways, I’ll try to stay under the assumption that a national organization dedicated to youth issues is a good idea. Plus I’m sure MSA doesn’t want to deal with 14 and 15 year old minors at its programs. I don’t think they can handle it, and if they can, I don’t think they would want to, if given a choice. High schoolers call their groups MSAs because it is a natural name to call a group of muslim students. But they are youth.

MYNA should have taken them in long ago. But, the high schoolers came to MSA. If the leaders of MSA natl had referred them to MYNA and helped the MYNA president respond to them (through MYNA), it would have helped both organizations. High school youth would have found MYNA to be relevant to them and MSA would be able to focus on being great at whatever it is that they should be great at. Hana and her predecessor should have basically taken these high school youth groups in as MYNA chapters years ago.

She and the new MSA pres were making a big deal about the issue of high school MSAs at the Majlis meeting, not even noticing that we had already listed it as a high priority item for the new MYNA. The strategic plan we submitted to ISNA even had details, if people were not hung up on the whole “no youth are involved” issue, they probably would have noticed.

End of part 6