Students gather in the learning lab as the start of Park’s brand new Muslim Student Association, which also aims to teach Arabic as well. The atmosphere among the students is excited for the latest session, where club president senior Suwies Hussein explains what the clubs are for, in addition to a game of jeopardy.
Hussein said she wants to create a club that promotes extracurriculars for students who might feel excluded from after school activities, especially male Somali students.
“It mainly wants to highlight the appreciation for the Somali boys at our school and the East African Muslim boys at our school because they’re the ones who are continuously the ones who you don’t see in after school clubs. You don’t see them in sports. So, I need them to understand they are welcome in the space, that this is their community, that they have something to contribute. That they themselves are valuable and can represent themselves without having to represent a whole nation or religion.” Hussein said.
Club advisor Faduma Adeed said it is important to build community amongst Muslim students at Park.
“My hope for it is to make sure that kids are drawn into it, especially our Muslim students, so that they can look forward (and) get to know each other to have that connection,” Adeed said.
Hussein said she hopes to further encourage Park to incorporate Arabic into the curriculum.
“I wanted this club (because of) my own complication with the language department at the school,” Hussein said. “There isn’t an Arabic class that I can take coming into high school, which would have been good with the IB program.”
Senior Safa Ali said the club is important to her because of muslim solidaritiy and the importance of learning arabic. In addition to the positive and fun energy the club has.
“I joined it because I wanted to be around people that have the same reason as me. Community, to me, is really important,” Ali said. “So it’s nice to see other people join in to learn Arabic and also learn about Islam and be around other people that have the same values.”
Hussein said the club will currently meet every Thursday, however, they are flexible.
“Right now, we officially meet every Thursday,” Hussein said. “However, if something does come up, we try to make sure we still have the meeting on a different day and make sure that the students are able to make it.”
The next meeting will be Thursday after school, in room B135.
