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MIKAELA MACKENZIE \/ FREE PRESS<\/p>\n
Muhaidin Omar, founder of Bilal Family and Community Centre, and Felicia Masenu, program director, at the Masjid Bilal. About 3,000 people participate in the centre\u2019s programming every year.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s also home to the Bilal Community and Family Centre, an innovative, community-centred nonprofit that is meeting vital needs for newcomers in this city.<\/p>\n
Francis, who prays regularly at the mosque, fled his native Chad two years ago because of threats to his safety. He made his way to Minnesota, then crossed the border into Manitoba by night, stumbling over muddy fields to claim asylum in Canada. (Francis asked to use a pseudonym for this story because he doesn\u2019t want his family in Chad to read online about what happened to him.)<\/p>\n
Francis soon found himself living alone in Winnipeg, isolated and struggling with depression. His wife in Chad, unaware that he was barely making ends meet, cut off contact with him because he wasn\u2019t sending enough money home. Francis turned to alcohol and, one night, in a desperate state, stole a bottle of whiskey from a liquor store.<\/p>\n
When police showed up at his door, Francis was mortified. He tried to explain to the officers that this was not who he was. Francis was given a court date. The judge chastised him for behaving so irresponsibly, for failing to think of his children and for putting his asylum claim at risk.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never done this in my life,\u201d Francis said. \u201cRight now, I\u2019m not even sleeping, I\u2019m too stressed.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge asked Francis if he was religious. When Francis said he was Muslim, the judge referred him to the Bilal Community and Family Centre\u2019s restorative justice program. If Francis completed the program, the judge said, he wouldn\u2019t have a criminal record.<\/p>\n
The restorative justice program is the brainchild of Muhaidin Omar, a lanky, gregarious man who dresses in crisp blazers, laughs often and speaks with an earnest intensity.<\/p>\n
Omar is one of the imams at Masjid Bilal and executive director of the community and family centre. He was born in Somalia, the son of a religious scholar, but left home at age 12 to get an education. He graduated with academic distinction from Al-Azhar University in Egypt with degrees in education and Islamic studies.<\/p>\n
Omar came to Winnipeg with plans to learn English. He soon found himself leading prayers and teaching weekend classes at the Manitoba Islamic Centre. As a part-time imam, he often mediated conflicts or counselled families in crisis. Eager to sharpen his skills, Omar enrolled in a social work degree at the University of Manitoba.<\/p>\n
\u201cI realized that I was already doing social work,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Omar founded the Bilal Community and Family Centre in 2017 in response to needs he saw in the newcomer community in Winnipeg. The centre currently runs about eight programs that provide newcomers with mentoring, tutoring, mental-health support, language classes, resettlement support, youth soccer games, summer activities for children and a restorative justice program. About 3,000 people avail themselves to the centre\u2019s programming every year.<\/p>\n
The centre has nine full-time staff, including a mental-health clinician, and more than 20 part-time staff. About half of the employees are Muslim, some are Christian, and a few aren\u2019t religious. Staff speak Amharic, Tigrinya, French, Swahili, Kinyarwanda, Somali, Turkish and several dialects of Arabic.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hire a lot of people from different cultures and faiths,\u201d Omar said. \u201cWe try to create a space where people feel safe, psychologically and interpersonally, to make mistakes, to ask questions, to express their own ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar\u2019s office is lined with books. Volumes in Arabic on Islamic jurisprudence stand shoulder-to-shoulder with English books on leadership, counselling and organizational culture.<\/p>\n
\u201cIslamic teachings teach you to listen to people. And social work teaches you to listen,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you blend those two fields, one provides a spiritual framework, the other one provides the theoretical framework and the technical skills to provide actual counselling. I think they go together very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMuhaidin is amazing. He\u2019s very open,\u201d said programs director Felicia Masenu, who wrote her doctoral thesis on non-governmental organization practices. She\u2019s not Muslim herself, but feels at home in the organization, thanks to Omar\u2019s efforts to foster intercultural understanding.<\/p>\n
The idea of a restorative justice program came to Omar a few years ago. He was hearing from families worried about their children getting into trouble with the law. He also noticed a disproportionate number of newcomer youth in the justice system.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people come to a new country they have no idea what supports and services are available for them to integrate into the system. That\u2019s when they get recruited by problematic groups,\u201d Masenu said.<\/p>\n
Anteneh Abraha, a case-worker in the restorative justice program, points out that many refugees have been treated brutally by police in their countries of origin. \u201cWhen they end up in the justice system there is a whole lot of trauma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Omar submitted a proposal for a restorative justice program to the federal government in 2020. He received a one-year grant that allowed him to build the program and train staff and volunteers.<\/p>\n
The centre is now recognized by Manitoba\u2019s Restorative Justice branch as one of its community justice committees. Newcomer youth or adults charged with minor offences can be referred to the program by probation officers, prosecutors, police or the courts.<\/p>\n
Abraha and a team assess each referral to see if they have the resources to take it on.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to do this very diligently and carefully because these are people\u2019s lives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
When the team accepts a case, they meet with the individual and together draw up a plan for how the person can repair the harm they\u2019ve done, address the issues that led to the incident and be reintegrated back into their community.<\/p>\n
Each plan is unique, Abraha said. Plans can involve the offender meeting with the person they\u2019ve harmed to hear their story, doing community service, providing financial restitution, taking anger management classes or receiving addictions treatment or counselling.<\/p>\n
Francis performed community service hours at the Masjid Bilal shovelling snow, cleaning carpets and scrubbing bathrooms. He also enrolled in an addictions program and received mental-health support.<\/p>\n
Francis says the work helped calm the chaos in his head. \u201cI came home tired, I ate, I slept. It really helped give me relief.\u201d<\/p>\n
Abraha also helped Francis sort out problems with his housing payments and get a work permit so he could apply for jobs. Now he\u2019s helping Francis find an immigration lawyer.<\/p>\n
Restorative justice differs from the traditional justice system because it gives the offender an opportunity to take responsibility for the harm they\u2019ve done and come up with a restoration process that matches the crime. The centre\u2019s program was modelled after other restorative justice initiatives in Manitoba, but it is uniquely tailored to the experiences of immigrants and refugees.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery client that comes to us has three questions in mind,\u201d Omar said. \u201cDo you care about me? Can I trust you? Can you help me?\u201d Building trust often involves speaking the client\u2019s language, he said.<\/p>\n
The program also includes the option of spiritual care. Clients can ask to be connected with an imam, priest, pastor or elder, depending on their faith. Including spiritual care in the program was important to Omar.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a lot of internal guilt,\u201d he said. \u201c(We want to) help them navigate through that so they know it\u2019s not the end of the world. You can write your own chapter.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Francis completed the requirements of his program, Abraha sent a report to the courts and Francis\u2019s charges were dropped. Francis still comes to the Masjid Bilal every Friday for prayers. \u201cI\u2019ve become part of their family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Thirty clients have completed the restorative justice program since it started five years ago.<\/p>\n
The program is run on volunteer hours. It receives no operating funding aside from $1,200 per year from the Manitoba Restorative Justice branch that covers costs such as printing and stamps. Abraha and other staff manage cases alongside their full-time responsibilities with other programs at the centre.<\/p>\n
The program could accept more clients if they had more funding, Omar said. He likes to list the ways the program benefits both individuals and society at large: \u201cOne, we are saving the lives of those individuals. Two, they are contributing back to the community; they will be taxpayers tomorrow. Three, the community is safer, we\u2019re combatting crime. Four, we are saving public money. And, five, we are bringing communities and families together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the centre hosted a series of events that brought together faith leaders from different traditions \u2014Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh and Indigenous \u2014 to talk about rising hate crimes and discuss solutions. In one session, police officers came to the mosque to talk about what kinds of acts are considered hate crimes and how to report them. Omar is planning another interfaith conference on combating hate through community dialogue in October.<\/p>\n
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The centre has outgrown its space at the Masjid Bilal and is in the process of moving some of its offices to a new location on St. James Street. But much of the programming continues to operate out of the mosque.<\/p>\n
These days the building is raucous with the voices of about a hundred children taking part in summer programming. Twenty-five community youth have been hired to run the programs. For many of them, this is their first job, Masenu pointed out, a stepping stone to further employment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a mosque, but we offer services to a lot of people who are not Muslim or not African,\u201d she said. \u201cAs long as you\u2019re a newcomer or refugee, it doesn\u2019t matter where you come from \u2014 our doors are open to everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story was produced in conjunction with Broadview, as part of a joint Religion in the News partnership covering issues of faith in Manitoba and nationally.<\/p>\n
josiah.neufeld@winnipegfreepress.com<\/p>\n
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