Choose Nearest City

  • Calgary
  • Ottawa
  • Edmonton
  • Regina
  • Halifax
  • Saskatoon
  • Hamilton
  • Toronto GTA
  • Kingston
  • Vancouver
  • Kitchener
  • Waterloo
  • London
  • Windsor
  • Montreal
  • Winnipeg
  • Outside of Canada

Choose your city (or nearest city)

  • Calgary
  • Montreal
  • Edmonton
  • Ottawa
  • Regina
  • Saskatoon
  • Halifax
  • Toronto GTA
  • Hamilton
  • Vancouver
  • Kingston
  • Waterloo
  • Kitchener
  • Windsor
  • London
  • Winnipeg
  • Outside of Canada
  • Events
  • Directory
  • PatronsPatrons

Enter your login credentials

Forgot username?

Forgot password?

Remember Me
Register
Facebook Login Google Login
loading
Please wait, logging in...

Register Details

[Form copy_BFRegistration not found!]
Have an account? Login

Forgot Username

[Form forgot_username not found!]

Forgot Password

[Form forgot_password not found!]

How would you like to proceed?

LOG IN / SIGN UP allows you to:
  • Have a record of all events you've been to.
  • Request cancellation if you cannot make it to an event.
  • Post an event of your own.
  • Add your business/organization listing to the online directory.
  • Add an opportunity (job, volunteer, petition, survey, etc.).

Please login to continue

LOG IN / SIGN UP allows you to:
  • Have a record of all events you've been to.
  • Request cancellation if you cannot make it to an event.
  • Post an event of your own.
  • Add your business/organization listing to the online directory.
  • Add an opportunity (job, volunteer, petition, survey, etc.).
Muslim Link is Ottawa Muslims' Online Community Newspaper. The site includes an up-to-date Events Listing and Business and Community Directory for Ottawa Muslims.
.
ML Directory
ML Directory
  • Home
  • Events
    • Ottawa
    • Montreal
    • Toronto GTA
    • Edmonton
    • Calgary
    • Vancouver
    • London
    • Windsor
    • Hamilton
    • Halifax
    • Winnipeg
    • Kingston
    • Kitchener/Waterloo
    • Regina/Saskatoon
    • Event Table
  • Directory
    • Ottawa
    • Montreal
    • Toronto GTA
    • Edmonton
    • Calgary
    • Vancouver
    • London
    • Windsor
    • Hamilton
    • Halifax
    • Winnipeg
    • Kingston
    • Kitchener/Waterloo
    • Regina/Saskatoon
  • News
  • Stories
  • Islamic Finance
  • Classifieds
    • Opportunities
      • Volunteer Opportunities
      • Job Opportunities
      • Crowdfunding
      • Bazaar Vendors Wanted
      • Call for Donations
      • ​​Scholarships / Bursaries
      • ​​Petitions
      • Nominations
      • ​​Call for Participants
      • ​​Call for Submissions
      • Call for Abstracts
      • Grants
      • ​​Surveys
      • ​​Invitation to Dialogue
      • Sponsorships
      • Contests
    • Locations
      • Jumaa Locations
      • Full-Time Islamic Schools
      • Part-Time Islamic Schools
      • Hifz Programs
      • Iftar Locations
      • Taraweeh Prayers
      • I'tikaf Locations
      • Eid Prayers
      • Eid Festival Locations
      • Camps Locations
    • Rentals
      • Add Rental
    • Find a Place
    • Find a Tenant
  • Opportunities
  • Locations
  • Rentals
  • Blog
  • Action Alerts
  • Home
  • Stories
  • An approach that recognizes Canada’s diversity should become an integral part of the conversation on mental health
The six week Mindfully Muslim program infused Islamic spiritual elements into mental health workshops led by Muslim mental health professionals. The six week Mindfully Muslim program infused Islamic spiritual elements into mental health workshops led by Muslim mental health professionals.
11
Feb
2018

An approach that recognizes Canada’s diversity should become an integral part of the conversation on mental health

Written by  Dr. Mojola Omole
Published in Stories
  • Add to Facebook
  • Like this? Tweet it to your followers!

Each week Dr. Yusra Ahmad, a psychiatrist and clinical lecturer at University of Toronto, meets six to eight women with a range of mental health disorders at a mosque in the city’s west end. She leads them through a program that combines mindful meditation with concrete skills to manage negative thoughts and regulate emotions.

However, this is not your typical mindfulness therapy. Each session began with prayers from the Qur’an and incorporates teachings from Islamic scholars.

She also uses imagery familiar to the women. For example, when leading a session on mindful eating, instead of using the example of a raisin, as she does with other audiences, she focuses on a date. The reason: Dates have an important role in Muslim traditions, enabling the women to relate to meditation techniques on a more personal level.

Dr. Ahmad is among a growing group of mental health experts who advocate a more culturally sensitive approach to treatment for disorders such as anxiety and depression than the conventional “one-size-fits-all” methods that currently apply.

.

An approach that recognizes Canada’s diversity, these experts argue, should become an integral part of the conversation on mental health, including during events like Bell Canada’s annual Let’s Talk campaign, which takes place on Jan. 31.

Immigrant mental illness

The argument for more culturally nuanced treatments rests, at least partly, on the idea that many Canadians come from a background where mental disorders are stigmatized and associated with hospital treatment for severe disease such as psychosis.

This stigma not only harms the patient, but often the entire family is ostracized.

Take Saira (not her real name), a 31-year old Muslim African-Canadian human resource manager, who was diagnosed last year with an anxiety disorder. Saira recalls being brushed off by friends and family with words like: “What do you have to be worried about, there’s nothing wrong with you.” Or, “you need to pray more.”

Such advice ended up worsening her feelings of isolation and her anxiety, to the point where she had to take health leave from her job.

Saira found Dr. Ahmad’s Mindfully Muslim program by chance on a Facebook group, after exhausting her options with conventional psychiatric treatment and medications. Dr. Ahmad’s six-week mindfulness program, with elements rooted in Muslim and African culture, gave her renewed hope, she says.

.

The latest data from Statistics Canada shows that in 2012, 16 per cent of Canadians met the criteria for a mental illness diagnosis.

But the Centre for Research on Inner City Health has found that although immigrants have similar rates of mental illness as people born in Canada, they make far less use of mental health services.

Managing difficult memories

Dr. Ahmad is not alone in her campaign to infuse cultural elements into mental health treatment of specific communities. Leysa Cerswell Kielburger, community program leader at The Centre for Mindfulness Studies in Toronto, has collaborated with Sistering, an organization for “at-risk” women in Toronto, to develop a drop-in mindfulness program for Syrian refugee women.

The program brings about 10 women together every week and facilitates a mindfulness program that centres on the trauma of being a refugee. A mindfulness-based cognitive therapy combines meditation with concrete skills to manage your thoughts, such as learning how to observe your thoughts and not to judge them.

The emphasis during the workshops is on managing difficult memories, taking care of the body and easing the stress of being a newcomer to Canada.

.

The women benefit from the program, Ms. Kielburger says, because they are in the company of others with the same refugee experience.

What’s more, they are able to talk about their experiences in their mother tongue and can access mental health services where they live, rather than in the more conventional but also more intimidating hospital setting.

Dr. Melinda Fowler, a Métis and Mi’Kmaq primary care physician in Winnipeg, approaches mental health treatment with an emphasis on spirituality — which most Indigenous peoples regard as a core tenet for effective treatment of mental illness.

Thus, Dr. Fowler begins each session with a traditional smudging ceremony aimed at developing a connection with her patients, and at helping them connect to their spirituality.

“There is a legacy of trauma, and mistrust of institutions such as health care in the Indigenous community,” says Dr. Fowler. She takes the view that by incorporating Indigenous customs in the management of mental disorders, patients are able to slowly regain a measure of trust in a system that has eradicated many traditional practices that used to be cornerstones of medical treatment in their communities.

.

Dr. Fowler is also taking her approach to indigenous mental health into the federal prison system. She has started a pilot program among inmates in the Prairie provinces that incorporates traditional ceremonies as well as Indigenous medicines such as weekay root, or wiikenh, a popular antidote for anxiety.

Spirituality in health

Arji Elmi, a social worker and PhD candidate at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, enrolled in Dr. Ahmad’s Mindfully Muslim program as a learning opportunity to improve her skills as a crisis social worker. She says the experience has been transformative in her work.

She often found in the past that religion and spirituality were discouraged in the structured therapy programs offered in crisis centres — due to concerns that patients might feel they were having religion forced on them. Yet for for those Canadians whose spirituality embraces all aspects of their lives it must play an important part in their treatment.

Ignoring the key role of spirituality or religion in a person’s health can deepen the isolation that often leads to mental breakdowns, Elmi says.

Diversity means that therapy must take different forms for different groups, whether it is women discussing their stresses as they farm the land, or of Indigenous ceremonies designed to achieve emotional balance, or Catholic churchgoers filing into the confessional box each week to share their struggles with a priest.

.

When mental health providers incorporate cultural nuances and engage in community based treatment, they can go a long way towards improving the mental health of the most vulnerable Canadians.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Read 3141 times Last modified on Sun, 11 Feb 2018 20:46
Rate this item
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
(0 votes)
Tagged under
  • Mental Health
  • Muslim Canadian

Dr. Mojola Omole

Dr. Mojola Omole is a global surgical oncologist with over 10 years of experience developing and implementing patient focused care in various settings both in Canada and sub-Saharan Africa. She has been integral in advancing awareness of the global burden of oncological diseases and increase visibility across key stakeholders. Omole has experience promoting surgical oncology care, education and relevant research to improve health standards in resource poor and resource rich settings. This has been a dynamic process that includes the synthesis, dissemination, exchange, and culturally-appropriate application of knowledge to improve health, provide sustainable oncology services, and strengthen the health care system. As a Paul Farmer Global Surgery Fellow, in conjunction with Harvard Medical School/Brigham and Women’s Hospital, she was integral in the development of an oncology curriculum for Rwanda’s national residency training program. Omole completed her general surgery residency at McMaster University. She finished her breast surgical oncology fellowship at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Related items

  • Statistics Canada Releases Infographic on Muslim Population in Canada Statistics Canada Releases Infographic on Muslim Population in Canada
  • How Exercise Benefits Mental Health How Exercise Benefits Mental Health
  • Mental Health During Ramadan: Heart, Mind, Body & Soul Mental Health During Ramadan: Heart, Mind, Body & Soul
back to top
.
.
.
.
.

Subscribe to Mailing List

Sign up for our free Muslim Link Snapshot and get our events listing and latest articles sent to your inbox weekly.

Please enter a name
Please enter a valid email address
Please enter a city

Ottawa Events
View More Events
Celebrate Eid Prayer & Festival Featured
Fri, Jun 06, 2025 09:00am EST/EDT
Festivals
Ottawa Eagles Wrestling SUMMER Program - 16+ Grappling Program
Mon, Jun 02, 2025 all day
Courses
Jami Omar: Hajj & The Best 10 Days (Kids Ages 7 to 13)
Mon, Jun 02, 2025 06:30pm EST/EDT
Educational
Walking with the Prophets - Ottawa
Tue, Jun 03, 2025 06:00pm EST/EDT
Educational
Islamic Relief Canada Arafah Street Iftar: Under the Stars in Ottawa
Thu, Jun 05, 2025 07:00pm EST/EDT
Celebrations

Featured Articles

  • “This is about life and death”: Public Toolkit Launched to Mobilize All Canadians as Gazan Canadian Families Describe Cruel Failure of Federal Government’s TRV Program. “This is about life and death”: Public Toolkit Launched to Mobilize All Canadians as Gazan Canadian Families Describe Cruel Failure of Federal Government’s TRV Program.
  • Council of Imams of Ottawa-Gatineau Eid al-Adha 1446 - 2025 Announcement Council of Imams of Ottawa-Gatineau Eid al-Adha 1446 - 2025 Announcement
  • Shelter for Muslim Women Doubles Capacity Thanks to BC Housing Shelter for Muslim Women Doubles Capacity Thanks to BC Housing

About us

  • About Muslim Link
    Our Team
    About Eye Media
    Contact Us
    Diversity & Inclusion Policy
  • Events & Directory Disclaimer
  • Project: A Muslim History of Ottawa

How To

  • How to Advertise on Muslim Link?
    How to View / Edit Your Advertisement Campaign?
    How to Add a Directory Listing on the Directory?
    How to Claim a Directory Listing?
    How to Add an Event?
    How to Add an Opportunity?
    How to Add a Rental Listing?

Event Listings

  •  - Ottawa
  •  - Toronto GTA
  •  - Montreal
  •  - Edmonton
  •  - Calgary
  •  - Vancouver
  •  - London
  •  - Windsor
  •  - Hamilton
  •  - Kitchener/Waterloo
  •  - Halifax
  •  - Winnipeg
  •  - Kingston
  •  - Regina/Saskatoon

Business & Community Directory

  •  - Ottawa
  •  - Toronto GTA
  •  - Montreal
  •  - Edmonton
  •  - Calgary
  •  - Vancouver
  •  - London
  •  - Windsor
  •  - Hamilton
  •  - Kitchener/Waterloo
  •  - Halifax
  •  - Winnipeg
  •  - Kingston
  •  - Regina/Saskatoon

Advertisers

  • Advertise Online
  • Become a Patron
  • Sponsorships
  • Join Snapshot e-Newsletter
  • Snapshot Publishing Dates

ML Team

  • Writers Workshops
  • Content Policy
  • Staff Payment System
  • Join the team

Social Media

Follow us on our pages!

Facebook Twitter Youtube LinkedIn Pinterest

Copyright © 2025 Muslim Link. All Rights Reserved. All articles, photos, graphics and images on this site remain the copyright of Muslim Link, unless otherwise noted, and should not be copied without prior permission. Designed by Eye Media Solutions
Top
Copyright © Muslim Link. All articles, photos, graphics and images on this site remain the copyright of Muslim Link, unless otherwise noted, and should not be copied without prior permission. 2025 All rights reserved. Custom Design by Youjoomla.com