5th Year in Africa!

January ended up being unexpectedly pleasant with a full scale planning of our activities in Burundi and Kenya. 

I just returned from a 10 day trip to Burundi and Kenya. In Burundi we launched the children’s curriculum for ages 5 to 12 titled “An Inclusive Islamic Curriculum.” This curriculum is being developed in partnership with our long-time partner organization Alliance des Imams du Corridor Nord pour le Développement Humanitaire (AICNDH) and the Mufti of Burundi. The curriculum will be accompanied with comics. In this example, the story-line is about freedom of religion. In this case, the Muslim woman is asking her maid, a Christian, to do laundry. The maid comments that it is Sunday and she would like to go to church. The husband later steps in to defend the maid’s claim and desire to attend church services and that is her right. 

At the launch, we had the pleasure of having keynote speakers Mr. Yahya Hamim (Director of Communications and Public Relations in the MInistry of Communications and Media), the Deputy Ambassador of The Netherlands Ms. Esther Loeffen, the Deputy Mufti of Burundi Sheikh Saluum Gilbert, Imam Khalfan (AINCDH) and myself. In attendance were women and men, including imams keen on rolling out the curriculum. We plan to have the curriculum, the training toolkit and the comics completed by September. What will be challenging is finding the most economic and viral way to distribute the product to madrassas.  

In Kenya, along with Ms. Ulfat Masibo, founder of our partner organization African Muslim Women Action Network (AMWAN) and Chair of Alliance of Inclusive Muslims (AIM), we met with local stakeholders in Mombasa on the issue of reforming the Kadhi Courts, making them more CEDAW compliant, a responsibility accepted by the government of Kenya. We also met with the Chief Kadhi of Kenya Ahmad Mudhar, which I am happy to report have agreed to giving the opening speech at the conference we are organizing International Conference on Charting a Course for Muslim Advocates for Freedom of Religion or Belief and Gender Rights to be held in Mombasa, Kenya. 

For some good corporate news! We are happy to welcome Ms. Zara Bari, a corporate lawyer with Munger, Tolles & Olson in Los Angeles to our Board of Trustees.

Onward and upward…

Ani Zonneveld

Founder, President | Muslims For Progressive Values

Editor’s Note: This Message was originally published in the February 2020 issue of the MPV Monthly Newsletter. You may subscribe to the newsletter by clicking on the tab at the bottom-right corner of this page!