TORONTO MUSLIM LEADERS HOLD NETWORKING MEETING

1 Rajab 1436/20 April 2015 (MINA) – Joining forces to serve the Canadian community, Muslim leaders held a networking meeting with the community development workers in the Greater Toronto Area, in a bid to boost cooperation.

“This is the 5th. year that we have been holding a networking meeting,” Muneeb Nasir, President of the Olive Tree Foundation, was quoted by Iqra.

“This meeting is an opportunity for us working in the non-profit sector organizations and activists – to connect and engage with each other and look for opportunities to collaborate.

“We have found it to be of great benefit to the Olive Tree Foundation and to all of the participants who took part in previous meetings.” World Bulletin quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

Aiming to learn about each other’s work, Muslims and community workers met last week at Emmanuel College, a theological college of Victoria University in the University of Toronto, to identify fields of cooperation.

Organized by the Olive Tree Foundation, a public endowment foundation that promotes community development and which funds projects for the benefit of the community, the event included presentations and discussions by attendants.

It also highlighted the priorities and challenges faced by non-profit groups working within the Muslim community.

Several NGOs, like Faith & the Common Good (FCG), a national interfaith network, made presentations about their latest projects during the event.

“The project’s objective is to find out if faith communities are interested in taking care of the vulnerable during the next extreme weather events,” said Donna Lang, Toronto Coordinator for Greening Sacred Spaces.

On her part, the Director of Master of Pastoral Studies and Master of Theological Studies at Emmanuel College made a brief about the Muslim Studies Program at the institution.

“Muslim Studies Program strives to meet the changing needs of the growing Muslim population in Canada,” Dr. Nevin Reda, the Director of Master of Pastoral Studies and Master of Theological Studies, said.

Muslims make around 2.8 percent of Canada’s 32.8 million population, and Islam is the number one non-Christian faith in the country.

A recent report from the Washington-based Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life said that Muslims are expected to make up 6.6% of Canada’s total population in 2030.

Toronto, the capital of Ontario, the province that one in three Canadians calls home, has the largest concentration of Muslims in Canada. (T/P002/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)