We offer training and technical assistance to mainstream organizations, professionals, and Muslim institutions to build their capacity to better serve the sexual and reproductive health needs of Muslim communities. We have worked with a variety of professionals, including:
- Teachers and school administrators
- Community leaders
- Imams and chaplains
- Volunteers and staff at mainstream rape crisis centers and health clinics
- Lawyers, judges, and advocates
- Campus student leaders
- Campus administrators
- Social workers and counselors
- Graduate students
“I believe that this course was exactly what I needed, at the exact moment it was necessary for my community. We are struggling with issues of spiritual abuse and I feel like I have been armed with the knowledge I need to speak to it with confidence and competence.”
Bayan Cohort 1
course participantIn 2020-2021, Bayan Islamic Graduate School partnered with HEART to co-create a 12-week online course titled “Caring Communities: Taking on Gender-Based Violence,” to offer leaders in our communities an opportunity to develop shared language to begin addressing gender-based violence in Muslim communities and workplaces. This fully-online course is the first of its kind, bringing together the knowledge, expertise and wisdom of scholars, leaders, and experts in various domains who are involved in educating communities about the dynamics, impacts, and implications of gender-based violence for maintaining trust, accountability and safety within our communities. The goals of this course were the following:
- To develop a shared language and understanding of gender-based violence, and the scope of the problem
- To understand the root causes of gender-based violence and barriers to disclosure and services
- To understand how to support victims of violence and build victim-centered spaces
- To explore a three-tiered framework to address gender-based violence at the individual, community and institutional levels
- To develop an action-plan to implement in their respective community that addresses and prevents GBV
Training a total of 40 imams, chaplains, and community leaders across the US and Canada. Course evaluations indicated that the course was an overwhelming success, showing that course participants graduated with a greater understanding of gender-based violence, and feeling more equipped to respond to survivors and address gender-based violence in their communities and organizations. To read more about the program and its final evaluation, please click below!
To see our work in action, learn about our two-day national campus convening, Responding with RAHMA, below.