NYC Premiere of "Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think"

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), Americans for Informed Democracy (AID), Intersections International, and Unity Productions Foundation (UPF) invite you to the New York City Premiere of "Inside Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think." The screening will be followed by a panel discussion featuring keynote speaker Alex Kronemer, Producer & Co-Founder of UPF.

Purchase your ticket at http://newyorkpremiere.eventbrite.com. For more information, please email insideislamNYC@gmail.com.

DATE: Tuesday, November 10

TIME: 7:00 pm (doors at 6:30)

PLACE: The Scholastic Auditorium, 557 Broadway, New York (SoHo)

The Binding of Abraham's Son

Jews, Christians, and Muslims put the binding of Abraham's son in the center of their religious narrative. For Jews, the story is featured on Rosh HaShannah. For Christians, the story prefigures the crucifixion of Jesus. For Muslims, Abraham and his son's submission to Allah is a critical moment in Islam and is celebrated each year in Eid ul Adha. We will read the seminal texts of each tradition and discuss the ideological implications of the story for religious identity formation.

With Rabbi Burton Visotzky, professor of Midrash and Interreligious Studies at Jewish Theological Seminary, and Imam Syed Sayeed, religious life advisor for the Muslim Students Association at Columbia University.

DATE: Thursday, November 5

TIME: 7:00 pm

PLACE: Ansche Chesed, 251 W 100th Street

Muslim Scientists and Thinkers: Their Contributions to Modern Science

Please join the Polytechnic Institute of NYU for a lecture featuring George Saliba (of Columbia University) on Muslim scientists and thinkers and their contributions to science.

DATE: Thursday, October 29

TIME: 5:30 pm

PLACE: Pfizer Auditorium of Dibner Building, Polytechnic Institute of NYU, 6 Metrotech Center, Brooklyn, NY 11201

Help Plan Islam Awareness Week

Do you want to celebrate the diversity in opinions, accomplishments, backgrounds, cultures, and talents of the Muslim ummah? Are you interested in showcasing the uniqueness of Islam though arts, politics, history, or music? Would you like to foster a greater understanding of and respect for Islam? If so, we need your help in planning Islam Awareness Week! We are looking for creative and enthusiastic people who want to help brainstorm and organize a series of programs for the week. Stay tuned for more information about how you can get involved!

Annual Carnival for St. Jude's Research Hospital

For November's community service project, the MSA will be partnering with the Blue Key Society to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for pediatric cancer. There will be fundraising carnival at which MSA will have a booth. If you would like to help plan what foods, games, and other ways MSA can raise money at the booth, or if you are interested in staffing the booth, please contact sr2695@columbia.edu.

DATE: Sunday, November 22

TIME: 7:00 pm

PLACE: Earl Hall Auditorium

MSA Co-sponsorships

MSA welcomes requests for monetary and non-monetary co-sponsorships. Please email msa@columbia.edu with your event's name and CO-SPONSORSHIP in the subject. Make sure to include your organization's name, event name, and a blurb that you would like us to publicize.

If you are requesting a monetary co-sponsorship, indicate the amount in your email. Please specify your budget for the event and what exactly MSA's contribution would be used towards (i.e. printing flyers, snacks, etc).

In order to ensure MSA gives your event adequate publicity, all requests for co-sponsorships, nominal or monetary, should be submitted at least 10 days in advance. If you would like to borrow any materials from the association, please submit a request at least one week in advance.

Muslim Community-Based Organization Seeking Interns

The Muslim Consultative Network (MCN) is a nonprofit network of New York area based Muslim American organizations and individuals, working to strengthen and unify our community for love of God and to serve the needs of Humanity. As a network of diverse NY activists, community leaders, and organizational representatives, we are uniquely well positioned to empower and engage across ethnic, class and racial boundaries. We aim to support and partner irrespective of race, class, religion or gender. Our current main focus areas are: Community Outreach/Health Education, Social Justice and Civil Liberties, and Preparedness/Community Empowerment. Members are also active in interfaith dialogue, recognizing its importance as an essential component of our service. (for more info see: www.mcnny.org).

Currently we seek some paid and some unpaid internships to help move these important (but under-resourced) projects forward:

Community Preparedness Intern:
MCN Crisis Program: 10 hours per week
Involvement in MCN Disaster Preparedness Program will include two out of the following three:
a) Red Cross training and certification paired with outreach to mosques about emergency planning;
b) CERT training and certification combined with promoting preparedness training with students and at risk Muslims in designated areas of the city;
c) Involvement in Flu Fighters program and presentations to student groups re vaccine/flu issues, with assistance to 3 health fairs at mosques and Islamic Schools in Manhattan, Brooklyn or Queens. Internship will pay $11 dollars per hour to start, quarterly increases likely. Please email iamourhaj@aol.com.


Community Education Intern:
Nafis Salaam (Muslims Against Smoking) 10 + hours weekly
Bilingual Intern requested to provide assistance to Nafis Salaam outreach: Give out fliers, contact media, and conduct short surveys concerning tobacco use in the Muslim community.
Internship will pay 12 per hour to start; quarterly increases scheduled. Please email iamourhaj@aol.com.


Community Strengthening Intern
Muslim Consultative Network
Nonprofit accounting assistance on Quickbooks;
4 hours per week at 16 dollars per hour to start
Website development 4 hours a week at 12 per hour, some additional volunteer help requested:

Unpaid Opportunities--credit may be offered, with some small stipends:
Research at Foundation Center; 2-3 hours per week
Updating our community directory of Muslim organizations; 2-3 hour per week
Assistance to Muslim-run Food Pantry (Bronx);
Assist Bronx Fundraiser October 31 for mosque burnt in fire;
Promote November Synagogue-Mosque "twinning"--citywide;
Assistance in promoting Women in Islam "Women Friendly Mosques" publication

Assistance to civil liberties program ie
a) Human Rights Day December 10 planning
b) Interfaith Immigration Coalition legislative visits
c) 300, 30 in 3 Project – — 6 masajid and/or MSAs are being asked to commit by January 31st to show the DVD Ending U.S. Sponsored Torture Forever by April 1st. Interns/volunteeer will call to arrange for them to agree to screen the DVD.. Preliminary Invitation letters should be sent out by 1 November 2009. Please email iamourhaj@aol.com.

Prospects for Peace: Discussion with OneVoice

The OneVoice Movement is an international mainstream grassroots movement with over 650,000 signatories in roughly equal numbers both in Israel and in Palestine, and 1,800 highly-trained youth leaders. It aims to amplify the voice of the overwhelming but heretofore silent majority of moderates who wish for peace and prosperity, empowering them to demand accountability from elected representatives and work toward a two-state solution guaranteeing an end to occupation and violence, and a viable, independent Palestinian state at peace with Israel. You can find more information about the organization at www.OneVoiceMovement.org.

DATE: Wednesday, November 4

TIME: 8:00 pm

PLACE: Held Auditorium, 3rd Floor Barnard Hall, 117th and Broadway

350: INTERNATIONAL DAY OF CLIMATE ACTION

Global Wakeup Call: New York City: A day-long event organized by Columbia University students who want to raise awareness for the cause of climate change, and, more specifically, 350. If you live in Morningside Heights, in New York City, or anywhere else, join us for a fun, interactive day on campus and help us give a big wake-up call to our community. It's time! For more information, please visit www.350.org.

DATE: Saturday, October 24

TIME: 11:00 am - 6:00 pm

PLACE: Low Plaza

Umrah Information Session

Over Spring Break 2010, the Islamic Center at New York University will be leading students, alumni, young professionals and Muslims from the U.S., Canada and more, in a one-week religious experience like no other. This trip is open to all Muslims, regardless of their affiliation with New York University or otherwise. They are working with Dar El Salam Travel Agency, the North American leader in Hajj and Umrah travel for many years, to ensure that people from all over the United States, Canada, and other parts of the world can travel in a safe, professional, and experienced environment.

Come learn more about this great opportunity at the information session, facilitated by Haroon Moghul.

DATE: Tuesday, October 20

TIME: 8:00 pm

PLACE: Lerner 569

Students of Color Leadership Retreat

WHAT IS IT?
SOCLR is designed for student leaders who identify as a member of one or more of the following groups: African/Black-heritage, Arab/Middle Eastern heritage, Asian Pacific Islander/South Asian heritage, Latino/a-heritage, Native-heritage and/or mixed-race. The Students of Color Leadership Retreat (SOCLR) is a weekend designed to fortify participants in leadership roles here on campus and beyond, to focus on shared experiences and to critically examine various issues and isms that relate to living in a multicultural and diverse community.

WHO SHOULD APPLY?
SOCLR is a joint venture between the CC/SEAS Office of Multicultural Affairs and Barnard College and Barnard College Diversity Initiatives and is open to all undergraduates from Barnard College, Columbia College, the School of General Studies, and the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science. First and second year students are strongly encouraged to apply.

Growth - Exploration - Leadership
Friday, November 13 – Sunday, November 15, 2009

Application due Friday, October 20, 2009 by 5:00 pm

Download the application here.

Legacy, Memory, History: In Rawanda

Join Taylor Krauss, founder of Voices of Rwanda, and Eugenie Mukeshimana for a film screening and moderated conversation.

What is the legacy of a genocide? What is the effect of a filmed testimony? How does one capture stories of suffering and survival, and what might they leave us with for the future?

Voices of Rwanda is a non-profit organization dedicated to recording and preserving testimonies of Rwandans, and to ensuring that their stories inform the world about genocide and inspire a global sense of responsibility to prevent human rights atrocities.

DATE: Tuesday, October 20

TIME: 7:00 pm

PLACE: Lerner Chinema

This event is cosponsored by Hillel, Global Solutions, African Students Association, Muslim Students Association, BOSS, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, The Veritas Forum, and Columbia College Democrats.

MADRE's Safe Birthing Kids Campaign

MADRE is an international women's human rights organization that partners with women in communities worldwide to meet urgent, local needs and create long-term solutions to the problems that women face.

MADRE’s newest campaign, called Safe Birthing Kids, is focused on Palestinian women who are unable to experience a safe birthing process due to the Israeli imposed military checkpoints. MADRE has teamed up with Midwives for Peace to train and equip new midwives to help women safely deliver their children in Palestine. Midwives for Peace is a grassroots group of both Palestinian and Israeli midwives reaching out across borders to help women safely give birth in a time of conflict.

How can you help?

MADRE is putting together Safe Birthing Kits, a kit of midwife-specific medical supplies, such as gauze, soap, hydrogen peroxide, sterile gloves, etc., that Midwives for Peace can use to ensure each of their traveling midwives have all of the sanitary equipment they need to improve the safety and quality of home childbirth. To find a complete list of items MADRE wants, please visit the MSA website, or http://www.madre.org/index.php?s=2&b=6&p=41.

Please email helpinghands@madre.org if you have any questions. If you want more information about the organization in general, please visit www.madre.org.

Brothers' Qur'an Halaqas

With Ramadan having just finished, there is no better time to continue with our efforts in reading and learning the Qur'an. The Columbia MSA invites brothers to join on Thursdays in the MSA prayer room after Isha prayer. We will be reading Qur'an and tafsir. Even if you are not comfortable reading, we encourage you to attend and listen, and insha Allah, we will all learn something!

DATE: Every Thursday

TIME: After Isha prayer

PLACE: MSA prayer room

Day of Dignity

Columbia MSA will be working with Islamic Relief's nationwide service project Day of Dignity 2009. Insha'Allah we will be distributing clothing and accessories for the winter, hygeine products, a hot meal, and health screenings to the homeless and impoverished. Volunteers will be needed to help with set up and breakdown, loading and unloading of supplies, distribution, providing security as well as surveying and talking to the recipients. To volunteer, please RSVP with your name and phone number to dayofdignity.ny@gmail.com!

DATE: Sunday, October 4

TIME: 11 am - 3 pm (volunteers are needed for the entire shift)

PLACE: Saint Francis Xavier Mission in Manhattan (55 West 15th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues - take the downtown 1 train to 14th St)

Brooklyn Bridge with the MSA

Join the MSA for a night of fun, food, and entertainment. We'll be heading downtown to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge and enjoy its spectacular view, followed by a stop at New York's most famous pizzeria. Insha'Allah, we'll see you there!

DATE: Saturday, October 3

TIME: 8:00 pm

PLACE: Meet at Columbia gates

Eid-a-thon 2009!

Did you enjoy FAST-A-THON? Wait till you come to our EID-A-THON. Please celebrate Eid Al-Fitr with us with a night jam-packed with good food and entertainment. And for all you ambitious Muslims out there, get ready for a game of Who Wants to be a Millionaire- MSA style. The evening will start at 6:30 with Maghrib. See you there!

TIME: Sunday, October 11th

PLACE: James Room, Barnard Hall