Practice With Your Feet

Practice With Your Feet is American Muslim Voice Foundation’s (AMV’s) ongoing free of cost project of leadership education and training, which is an essential part of the Islamic faith. Its curriculum will be based upon the universal principles of human rights, non-violence, critical consciousness, and community service, as these are the fundamental tenets of Islam. We are working with a consultant, Michael James, provided by Silicon Valley Community Foundation, who has experience developing leadership with youth.
 
There are three phases to this training.  Initially we will start with Girls/Women; formal training for the first phase will start in January of 2012.  The second phase will add Youth/Young men and the third phase will include Multifaith/Multicultural participants to encourage religious harmony among all faiths and ethnicity.  
 
This succession plan is the key to transferring leadership to future generations by sharing the wealth of knowledge acquired by the AMV Foundation in the past decade in the fields of proactive community and peace building. These young leaders of tomorrow will also represent the continuity of the work of American Muslim Voice Foundation in the mainstream.
The first 'class' of leadership participants will be young Muslim women between the ages of 13 and 25. This age is a dynamic one in the stages of development of ethics, cultural awareness, and life skills. Young women with leadership skills are critical for modeling democratic and just practices, particularly young women of color. Young Muslim American girls/women can play a powerful role that covers two key areas of peacemaking – social equity and interfaith/intercultural community building. An objective of “Practice With Your Feet” is to introduce the next generation of Muslims to a kind of leadership central to the Muslim and American narrative.  We are also interested in recruiting women ages 25 and up to sharpen their skills of leadership and to be mentors for future generations. This kind of interaction builds confidence, provides extended family members lacking in many youngsters lives, and enhances inter-generational relationships. Parent involvement is encouraged and will be instrumental.
 
American Muslim Voice Foundation is committed to create future Muslim peacemakers and community builders but we have a greater need of Muslim peacemakers and community builders today. There is a range of community and peace-building events of AMV Foundation such as the Dinner and Dialogue,Ppeace picnics, Open Houses, Ramadan dinners, Eid dinners, Teach-ins,  Peace conventions and our latest campaign of  “National Invite your Neighbors to Dinner” day. We need Muslim peacemakers and community builders today to be engaged in these educational and cultural events to eradicate Islamophobia and to break down the barriers of ignorance and hate.
       
We encourage you to join early to have a greater influence and input in this project. This is a community project and would be an asset for coming generations. Let us build a Muslim institution we will be proud to leave for our future generations. Participant’s interest of the area of service and leadership choices will become a part of this training.

To get involved in this exciting project please send an email to Yasmin Vanya yasnohana@gmail.com, Michael James at mdj.michael.james@gmail.com,  KHALID SAEED ksaeed@sbcglobal.net, or Samina Sundas at saminasundas@yahoo.com.