The Muslim Girl Scouts of Orange County, CA is organizing their second annual ‘Open Mosque Day’ on April 30th which will educate their fellow Girl Scouts about their faith.
“The mosque gets a lot of disturbing phone calls — ‘You Muslims are terrorists,’ ‘We hate you,’ ‘Get out of here,’ ” says Heba Morsi, leader of Troop 3357, which is affiliated with Minaret Academy, a school for Anaheim’s Islamic Institute of Orange County. “The girls just put their foot down and said, ‘What’s happening on TV, what’s being said about us isn’t true.’ And the best way to counter that is to invite people into our home.”
The three-hour program will include a tour of the mosque (Anaheim’s Islamic Institute), a presentation from prominent Muslim women in the community, and fun things like henna tattoos, art and yes, food.
“This year there’s been a lot of confusion surrounding our faith and a lot of misconceptions,” says Raneem Iftekhar, a 7th-grade Scout from Irvine, CA. “It’s to show our sisters that we’re not so different. We go to school with them, we’re friends with them, we’re in the same community as them.”
