providing resources and opportunites

Lubabah wrote:
“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.”

* Very true, simply stated: good local youth work is done by local youth who get the encouragement, assistance, and resources they need from parents, advisors, and masjid leaders. Someone must be there to help and train those who want or need help and training. That someone should be MYNA. This was going to be one of the highest priorities.

In fact, after the ISNA Majlis officially appointed us to the MYNA Board of Advisors in April 2003; our very first target was the revival of the Winter training program as a kick off event not just to introduce the new MYNA to the youth, but to the Parents, Advisors, and Masjid leaders who work for them. With only 8 months to do all the prerequisites to make it a success, the last thing we needed was ISNAs bureaucracy getting involved.

What would make this training program successful? - We had to determine what it is that we are training the youth and adults to do exactly.

MYNA had no vision - it was mostly a slogan: “by youth; for youth.” we can’t train people until we know what MYNA does.

-so we had to craft a vision, create goals, and design a strategic plan.

HOW?...
Getting together in Dallas to determine priorities, and having teleconferences every week afterwards:
Before we advise any youth, before we revive anything, we need to know for ourselves what the bigger picture is. We were these youth not too long ago. The biggest problems have not changed: the feelings of isolation, the pressure to conform, opportunities to think and do for themselves, access to resources, etc. etc. these were to be the core of MYNA. Youth would do all the local MYNA activities, which is where they can grow the most and make the biggest impact. The local community needs them, or else it cannot grow. The national org that they are affiliated with simply needs to be there for them with resources and opportunities (and money). This was to be the essence of the new MYNA. Whats so bad about it? Why such an opposition from Hana and some ISNA leaders? Why the pressure to bring back the old MYNA? Would it have hurt to try this for a while and see if things could get better? So... this is the vision we crafted. The training program was to be for us as much as the youth.

MYNA had no structure – its old structure based on ISNA is not good enough to deal with current dynamics of Islam in America. (based on the fact that it died out, and many people (including youth) had said we need a change.

-so we scrapped the old strucutre. We decided that we would not fill any positions until a new national role for youth was created. The new structure was to be created AFTER the training program.

WHY?...
The strategic planning process that I was coordinating included the creation of small groups to study important subjects (the ideal group would consist of a parent, a youth leader, a scholar on the subject, a leader of a masjid, and a MYNA advisor), figure out options, and prepare a report with their recommendation. This was to be done in November and December. We would have had the reports before the training program, at which there would be more youth leaders to discuss the recommendations of the groups. The role of youth in the national organization, and what sort of youth structure MYNA would have was to be one of those study subjects. I think only after this process would we have had a new MYNA structure ready for youth to take positions that actually meant something.
ALSO...
The hired non-youth was necessary to deliver professional youth related services to masjids, youth groups, youth leaders, and parents. That’s it. Isn’t that a reasonable addition to MYNA? What’s wrong with trying it out? Still, if any national activities were going to take place, they would have had a youth chairperson, and a youth organizing committee from the host city (not much of a change). We all came from a MYNA background; we know the importance of empowering youth. But we also know the realities of running a national organization, we learned the hard way, through MYNA. I used to be a local MYNA chapter president that got little from the national org other then an annual conference.

MYNA had no database – it had no easy way to find all those who should come to such a training program.

-so we started to build one.

HOW?...
We’d create the internet infrastructure, and log, type, or scan in all the data we have into a web accessed database. For this we needed to hire someone immediately: to find contacts, find resources and opportunities, do the paperwork, build an archive to learn from the past, create a 1-800# and maintain the website for new contacts to get in touch with us.

All of these things are what we were doing for the past year. It’s sad that this received little support at the Majlis meeting (except Sr. Ingrid Mattson, she was extremely supportive). We determined that all of these things were necessary before we took part in any type of training program for anyone. I don’t know about you, but before I drag another youth into the messy world of Islamic activism, I want to do as much as possible to make sure that it will be a rewarding experience, not one that will turn any more youth into jaded, bitter, or brain washed young adults. Yet some in ISNAs leadership seemed more interested in pushing us to bring youth into a failed and irrelevant structure immediately. I was amazed at the lack of understanding and support for what we wanted to do, and offended at the lack of trust.

end of my response to the issues raised by Lubabah.