AMHERST NY: On Friday, February 28th, WNYMuslims inaugurated WNYMSA by holding its first Open Mic event.  The idea behind this new venture is to allow our Muslim youth to connect with and explore their cultural identity. The event was directed towards expressing their hidden talents. Young Muslim youth from all types of backgrounds and ethnicities like Pakistan, Gambia, Somali, Bengali, and Black African American and several more got together, they mingled and express their religious ideologies through the medium of poetry and general conversation.

Ms. Sana Iqbal,  one of the organizers and a UB student, started the program with a brief introduction about WNYMSA and offered the mic to the audience and from there onward the program went with the flow. Some participants presented their original poems.  Ilhan Noor, the Chief Organizer & a senior at UB performed a poem called “hate sonnet”. Ishatu a sophomore at UB performed a poem about “ Beauty”, and Rabia Annie, a new WNYMuslims member performed a poem about being in a dark place. A representative of Jaffarya Center discussed the concept of Islamic banking, which was very informative. After the poetic contributions the event entered into an open discussion and that’s what the idea of holding the event to understand the mind-frame of our present youth and clear out prevalent confusions and misunderstandings.

It was definitely a night to remember that we wish to recreate.  WNYMSA is a new organization that we hope to grow as the youth is our future. WNYMSA is hoping to serve as a platform for our youth to use their freedom of expression. We highly appreciate the presence of all the participants, who made our event worthwhile with their poetic and verbal contributions. It’s just the beginning we will definitely organize more events in the near future, so stay connected with us. Last but not the least, we would like to thank Chester’s Fried Halal Chicken and Hot Spot Pizza for their generosity for sponsoring the food items of the event.