By Arshi Siddiqui, Plymouth High School
Last weekend the YMFA (Young Muslims for Faith and Action) held their annual Camp trip. This camp was held in Oscoda, Michigan and the place that we were staying at was called Camp Nissakone.
There were many activities and the youth had lots of fun. At first when the youth arrived at the camp, they were moaning and groaning, but by the end of camp everyone didn’t want to leave. The activities that we were doing were paint-balling, zip-lining, Mini-Olympics, rock-climbing, capture the flag, volleyball, and a waterslide. The theme of this camp was about acting locally, but thinking globally in our community.
The acting globally part was to think about our Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East and trying to help their situation. In one of our lectures, the speaker was saying, “we are blessed to be able to help each other. We think that we cannot do anything to help people in need, but it’s the easiest for us. We are able, as a community, to feed people.”
The speaker, Dr. Malik Shaw, had one specific quote, “Don’t shoot the breeze about it if you can’t be about it.” This means, don’t go off about saying that you’re going to do something when in reality you are not going to take action, or take initiative. At least you can try and take the risk.
In our community, we have so many opportunities to reach out, to help the elderly, to donate cans and to do charity, but we’re so busied up in our lives we forget about others. We can even do simple things in our lives to help. Dr. Malik Shaw also explained something about taking risks. “There are three types of risks that we should all take. The first risk is to try a hobby. Try something new to discover. Maybe you’ll like it. Second is to get to know yourself. Some people absolutely hate to be alone with themselves. The more time you’ll spend with yourself, the more you’ll know about yourself and figure out what kind of a person you are. If you don’t like being alone, go back to step number one. Try a hobby. Last but not least is to take a risk in your deen. Reach out and help at your local Masjid maybe.”
This three-day camp gave our youth Muslims so much to think about. Another girls’ discussion was on how to deal with stereotypes and diversity. The directors of the lecture put fake labels on two or three girls and told us to come up with stereotypes for what we have seen. Then we bridged off on how and why we have these stereotypes and what we could change about them.
Overall, it showed how people will always judge a person on the color of their skin and their religion. There’s more to diversity than just color, and that was explained clearly to the Muslim girls. In general, this year’s camp was extraordinary, and it is guaranteed that whoever took part in this camp left with valuable information on how they could try to change the world.
There were many activities and the youth had lots of fun. At first when the youth arrived at the camp, they were moaning and groaning, but by the end of camp everyone didn’t want to leave. The activities that we were doing were paint-balling, zip-lining, Mini-Olympics, rock-climbing, capture the flag, volleyball, and a waterslide. The theme of this camp was about acting locally, but thinking globally in our community.
The acting globally part was to think about our Muslim brothers and sisters in the Middle East and trying to help their situation. In one of our lectures, the speaker was saying, “we are blessed to be able to help each other. We think that we cannot do anything to help people in need, but it’s the easiest for us. We are able, as a community, to feed people.”
The speaker, Dr. Malik Shaw, had one specific quote, “Don’t shoot the breeze about it if you can’t be about it.” This means, don’t go off about saying that you’re going to do something when in reality you are not going to take action, or take initiative. At least you can try and take the risk.
In our community, we have so many opportunities to reach out, to help the elderly, to donate cans and to do charity, but we’re so busied up in our lives we forget about others. We can even do simple things in our lives to help. Dr. Malik Shaw also explained something about taking risks. “There are three types of risks that we should all take. The first risk is to try a hobby. Try something new to discover. Maybe you’ll like it. Second is to get to know yourself. Some people absolutely hate to be alone with themselves. The more time you’ll spend with yourself, the more you’ll know about yourself and figure out what kind of a person you are. If you don’t like being alone, go back to step number one. Try a hobby. Last but not least is to take a risk in your deen. Reach out and help at your local Masjid maybe.”
This three-day camp gave our youth Muslims so much to think about. Another girls’ discussion was on how to deal with stereotypes and diversity. The directors of the lecture put fake labels on two or three girls and told us to come up with stereotypes for what we have seen. Then we bridged off on how and why we have these stereotypes and what we could change about them.
Overall, it showed how people will always judge a person on the color of their skin and their religion. There’s more to diversity than just color, and that was explained clearly to the Muslim girls. In general, this year’s camp was extraordinary, and it is guaranteed that whoever took part in this camp left with valuable information on how they could try to change the world.
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