Healing, Hope and Art is a two part project that provides art therapy for Muslim students and an anti-Islamophobia awareness campaign aimed at engaging the general public. The campaign uses artwork created by students at the therapy sessions. Muslim Link spoke to Farrah Marfatia, Principal of Maingate Islamic Academy in Mississauga, about the project.

Serenity Islamic Mental Health Awareness was founded last year as a way to address the stigma and common myths associated with mental illness in Ottawa’s Muslim Communities. It is led by Berak Hussain, a practicing counsellor and graduate of the University of Ottawa’s Masters’ in Counselling Program, and a number of university students. At present they have organized a few presentations on mental health by qualified mental health service providers who come from Muslim and non-Muslim backgrounds.

Muslim Link interviewed Berak Hussain about the initiative.

In early December, local imams, along with other faith leaders, attended a workshop at the South Nepean Muslim Community (SNMC) mosque exploring the intersection of mental illness and the law. The workshop was presented by Connecting Ottawa as part of The Spirit of the Law, a provincial project run by Interfaith Initiatives for Civic Engagement (IICE) and funded by the Law Foundation of Ontario. The project aims to work with faith communities to ensure that people living with mental illness who come in to conflict with the law can receive support by ensuring that faith communities and legal professionals are taking a holistic approach to their care.

Chelby Marie Daigle discusses her experience speaking at the University of Ottawa's Muslim Community Association's Islam & Mental Health Discussion Session on October 31st.

Ayan Yusuf is coping with paranoid schizophrenia and depression and she wants you to know all about it. The 26 year-old spoke at the 3rdAnnual Awakening: Reviving the Spirit of Somali Youth event in January about her struggle and why it is important for the community to challenge the stigma faced by those living with mental illness. She hopes that by sharing her story, other Muslims living with mental illness will feel less alone in their struggle.

Berak Hussain discovered her passion for counselling back when she was a student at Gloucester High School.

"I have some good news and some bad news...The bad news is that I relapsed while at work... I felt terrible Zeyad, I just stood there in the bathroom not even able to look myself in the mirror. "

"I felt so angry with myself and decided that this was enough... Whatever you want to call it, the good news is that I decided I would not let Shaytan (the devil) win this time and miss dhuhr (midday) and asr (afternoon) prayers like I usually do when I relapse."