Now available in their Findlay Creek development, Tartan Homes’ ‘Kawartha’ model is a home that provides with unique flexibility. Accommodating to different living styles, home buyers can choose to have a living room instead of an ‘open concept’ living room.

Developed in response to requests that Tartan Homes has received from home buyers over the last few years, the ‘Kawartha’ is an example of a business listening to its customers’ needs.

Customers like Sakna Bassam.

MuslimFest is back for another year, taking place from August 4th to 6th in Mississauga's Celebration Square.

The annual Muslim Arts Festival is the largest of its kind in North America, attracting over 30,000 attendes annually.

Festival and Events Ontario selected MuslimFest as one of the best festivals in Ontario in 2016.

Launched in 2004, MuslimFest is a joint project of DawaNet and Sound Vision. Offering a mix of music, comedy, spoken word, visual art, theatre and workshops on a diversity of topics, along with fun activities for children and a multicultural bazaar, MuslimFest showcases the talent of a diveristy of Muslim artists from Canada and around the world.

Muslim Link interviewed MuslimFest's Event Director Tariq Syed about why folks should visit Mississauga this weekend to check out this year's festival.

Like all of the victims of the Quebec mosque shooting, Mamadou Barry's death not only impacted his family, it crushed the dream of access to clean drinking water for his village in the West African country of Guinea. Barry was raising funds to install a 100-meter-deep well in his village, located outside of Labe, Guinea's second-largest city.

The I.LEAD conference is back for a fifth year and will take place on Saturday, July 15th. Tickets can be purchased online here.

Muslim Link interviewed the I.LEAD organizers about what people could look forward to at this year's conference.

When Ahmad Iqbal moved to North America, he was surprised by this culture’s bathroom habits. A Pakistani Canadian who grew up in the Middle East and Asia, he was used to washing with water after using the toilet. Seeing as this is the religious requirement for all Muslims, bidets are staples of most modern Muslim homes and are even common in countries like South Korea and Japan. However, they are not commonly found in North American households.

But Ahmad hopes to change that. He founded Nadeef (clean in Arabic), a company which sells easy to install hand-held bidets, offering a simple and affordable solution for anyone in North America who wants a more hygienic and environmentally friendly alternative to toilet paper.

Muslim Link interviewed Ahmad about Nadeef Bidet and the lessons he has learned from his experience in business that he hopes will help other aspiring entrepreneurs.

Local Eritrean Canadians have come together to found Afaagh Association, a Canadian-based registered charitable organization, dedicated to helping the forgotten Eritrean refugees living in Eastern Sudan. On Friday May 19, they had their organizational launch and first fundraising event in Ottawa with Shaykh Abdalla Idris Ali. 

Ahmed Hashim Ullah is a Rohingya refugee living in Kitchener-Waterloo. He and a number of other Rohingya refugee youth worked with Yusuf Zine to develop the play I Am Rohingya. They are successfully crowdfunded to raise enough funds to develop the story behind the making of the play into a documentary.

Afghan Canadian Soleiman Faqiri died in Lindsay Correctional Facility in December 2016. His family wants answers. His brother, Yusuf Faqiri, will be in Ottawa on May 16 to discuss his family's fight for justice.

The Justice For Soli in partnership with Muslim Link and the Criminalization and Punishment Education Project is hosting this event on May 16 at 7pm at the University of Ottawa aimed at engaging people in Soleiman Faqiri's family fight for justice, as well as raising awareness about the crisis within Ontario's correctional facilities, particularly in terms of the treatment of people living with mental illness.

Register to attend the event online here.

Afghan Canadian Soleiman Faqiri, 30, was diagnosed with schizophrenia during his first year of university at Waterloo in 2005.

Jamaal Jackson Rogers was named Ottawa's English-language Poet Laureate by Mayor Jim Watson in March. Rogers, a spoken word artist, arts educator, residential counsellor for adults with disabilities, and creative director of Origin Arts and Community Centre, will be the city's first poet laureate in over 25 years.