As the sun set on Sunday, April 7, the Triad Muslims Center in High Point, North Carolina was packed. FCNL Diaspora Organizers Ghaisha Yahaya-Mohamed and her daughter, Zainab Adamou-Mohamed, worked with the Triad Muslim Center’s Aalia Shahzadi to host over 60 members of the local community. They gathered not just to share an iftar meal during the month of Ramadan, but to take action for Palestinians in Gaza undergoing a forced famine.
In February, I travelled with Sarah Freeman-Woolpert to North Carolina and met with community members in the Triad region for both a Diaspora Youth Gathering of local students and a roundtable dinner at Nazareth, a well-loved local Palestinian restaurant where community leaders, from pastors to nonprofit directors to their young children, gathered to talk about how to pressure their members of Congress on a ceasefire in Gaza. The idea for a joint iftar-letter-writing session came from that trip.
Ghaisha Yahaya-Mohamed, Niger immigrant, mom, and FCNL Diaspora Organizer, worked with her long-time community member Aalia Shahzadi to host the event. By leaning on their connections to High Point’s masjid, church, and community center networks, they turned out a huge crowd, all fired up to write to their members of Congress about ending the siege on Gaza and getting humanitarian aid into Gaza immediately.
From Haitian church congregants to Pakistani community members, to local Quakers from the New Garden Friends Meeting, the rich diversity of North Carolina’s Triad region was on clear display.
“It was amazing to have so many people come together and write to their member of Congress about Palestine,” Yahaya-Mohamed shared, with Shahzadi adding that they set up a QR code for people to scan FCNL’s Ceasefire link and take action.
As Adamou-Mohamed reflected, “The Iftar Dinner and Action session at the Triad Muslim Center was an opportunity for people to come together over what they had in common, build new connections, and work towards justice for all.”
She pointed out the connection between ritual and advocacy: “Iftar is a special time during Ramadan that highlights worship and bonding as we break our fasts. As Muslims, it was important that we paired that routine with taking action for Palestine by sending letters to our elected officials.”
By building community and taking action together, Yahaya-Mohamed, Adamou-Mohamed and Shahzadi set a powerful example of diaspora solidarity for all of us. To learn how to build solidarity in your own community, reach out to us at info@fcnl.org — we would love to support you as together we build the world we seek.
