Your mission:
- Do some research to find out about organizations in your neighbourhood or city that help to alleviate poverty or provide services for those who are less fortunate.
- During March Break volunteer around your community! You may be at a food bank, soup kitchen, or homeless shelter.
- Make a concerted effort to talk with the people you are serving. Learn about who they are and their stories.
- Expert level challenge: Volunteer as regularly as you can and involve your friends if you can by inviting them to also volunteer their time.
Alternate mission:
So maybe you can’t drive to the volunteer location or you get snowed in – the mission is still running!
- Try spring cleaning and going through your closets to donate clothing, winter apparel or shoes that no longer fit
- Gather canned food from family and friends and make a donation or create 5-10 hygiene packs (toothbrush/paste, deodorant, and other) and deliver these to local shelters whenever you can!
Dinner Time Discussion:
- Why is it important to “Talk the talk and walk the walk?”
- Reflect on your experience immediately after you volunteer: How did it feel? What did you learn? What was surprising? What was difficult? Write down your thoughts.
- Read the extract of the speech made by Mawlana Hazar Imam at the conference on Indigenous Philanthropy on October 17 2000 in Islamabad, Pakistan and answer the following questions:
“Islam’s clear and explicit injunction is to share resources beyond one’s reasonable commitments, and to care for those in need … The Qur’an, the Hadith, the sayings of Hazrat Ali, and the many scholarly sources make references to the forms and purposes of philanthropy. Human dignity – restoring it, and sustaining it – is a central theme. Enabling individuals to recover and maintain their dignity as befitting their status as Allah’s greatest creation, is one of the main reasons for charitable action. There is dignity in the individual’s ability to manage his or her destiny.”
- Why is considering human dignity important when helping others in need?
- Where else have you heard Hazar Imam speak about caring for others?
Resources
Bonus activity: Play a game of Scrabble (or other word game) either in person or on-line with the theme “making a difference.” Use only words associated with poverty and poverty alleviation.
