Westview High student starts Muslim club to educate community about his faith School Science News for Kids

Westview High student starts Muslim club to educate community about his faith

Posted by Elizabeth Spears on June 23, 2011 Leave a comment (0) Go to comments

As Thanksgiving weekend came to a close, Mustafa Abdulkadir couldn’t sleep as he anticipated returning to school.

At the holiday tree-lighting ceremony in downtown Portland, 19-year-old Mohamed Osman Mohamud had been arrested and accused of trying to set off a bomb.

Abdulkadir, 19, wondered how he and his Muslim peers would be treated at school and in the community. The Westview High School senior feared that Mohamud would become the face of Islam to non-Muslim Oregonians.

“It was unlike any other morning,” he said of that tense Monday.

Students weren’t cruel, Abdulkadir said, but he could see in their faces that they were full of questions about his Islamic faith and the connections between their Muslim peers and Mohamud, a Westview graduate.

Abdulkadir was willing — eager even — to denounce Mohamud’s alleged actions, but he wasn’t ready to denounce Islam as a faith and culture that he treasures. The incident motivated Abdulkadir to found the Westview Muslim Club in hopes of fostering understanding between Muslim students and their non-Muslim peers. One school counselor credits the club with helping Muslim students find acceptance and flourish.

Born in Somalia during civil war, Abdulkadir was an infant when his mother, whose tribe was forced to evacuate, moved with his siblings to the United States. He stayed behind with his father, moving to and from refugee camps in Kenya when conflict in Somalia became too dangerous.

After his father died in a car crash, Abdulkadir spent his early teens trying to immigrate to the United States legally to join his family in Oregon, but the process was slow. In January 2009, using his brother’s passport, he entered the country illegally.

He was detained when he arrived in Portland and remained in a Tacoma immigration customs detention center until the country granted him political asylum in May 2009. He moved to Beaverton, where his mother, four brothers and four sisters live.

His faith remained an integral part of his life as he began school that year at Westview, where he went by his brother’s last name, Hirsi. He took his father’s surname, Abdulkadir, earlier this year.

After the Portland bomb plot came to light, he wasn’t about to give up on Islam because of the negative stereotypes. Muslim students needed to address the incident, Abdulkadir thought, with their non-Muslim peers and each other.

With encouragement from school counselors and Principal Mike Chamberlain, Abdulkadir formed the Westview Muslim Club.

The club appeared in Westview’s student newspaper and made a televised public service announcement, shown at school, condemning the plot and explaining what Islam meant to them.

Educating the community about Islam was important work, Abdulkadir said, but the group’s simultaneous goal of providing a supportive environment for Muslim youths was also key.

Mohamud “felt like he didn’t belong to anything,” Abdulkadir said. “I believe society failed him.”

For the roughly 20 Muslim students who participated in the club this year, the positive results were obvious, said school counselor Tay MacIntyre. In coming together, they connected with each other and their non-Muslim peers. They feel more comfortable in class and more recognized.

“It’s been incredibly rewarding to see them blossom,” she said. “They’re not walking around the school with this cloud of apprehension. They don’t seem as guarded; it seems like they’re really flourishing.”

Abdulkadir said that the group was successful and that it made a difference to him and his Muslim friends. But he knows there’s more work to do. Abdulkadir’s approach to changing stereotypes is to embrace his culture and faith and represent it well.

That’s why he joined Somali Youth of Oregon, a statewide group that shares many of the goals of the Westview club. The lanky, soft-spoken teen wants to be a police officer, because he says Somali Americans will be more likely to report crimes and feel comfortable relying on police protection if they feel represented in their local department.

In his pursuit of a career in law enforcement, Abdulkadir plans to attend Portland Community College in the fall and complete a degree in criminal justice.

For all of Abdulkadir’s accomplishments in just two years in the United States, some believe that his inspiring example is the greatest among them.

“He’s seen plenty of darkness, and he’s only interested in making things better,” MacIntyre said. “I’ve been honored to know him and learn from him.”