Report on Community Engagement Project (CCUB 4621)

POST #1 for CCUB 4621

An honest sharing; What I've gained and Learned from this Course. 

Assalamualaikum and greetings to each and everyone of you. I hope everyone is surrounded with happiness and positivities, and even if you're in the middle of tough moments, I hope you find strength knowing that Allah is always with His patient and grateful believers <3 

Today, I am going to write about the things and values that I've gained and learned from this course. Before I go in depth towards this posting, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to my beloved instructor, Sister Fida for her undying effort and passion to share her knowledge and making this course as interesting and beneficial it could be. 

As we all know, we are now currently on our ERTL classes due to Covid-19 pandemic. Despite various troubles and circumstances, we all made it to the end (almost, :p) Throughout this semester, there were a few synchronous classes conducted through Google Meet and there were also asynchronous classes due to the some circumstances that couldn't be avoided. Nevertheless, I enjoyed every single of them with all of my heart. 

On our first class, there weren't much to tell as basically, it was a taaruf class with the intention to know each other better and build rapport within the instructor and participants. Next, in our second class, Sister Fida' asked us to briefly introduce ourselves again before proceeding to share our favourite letter and justify our reasons for the choice we made. As for me, my favourite letter is G because of the word Gratitude. You'll find more explanation on why gratitude is my favourite word on different postings. After all, I am determined to practise the act of gratitude even much better that I did before as I believe it is essential to make my life more meaningful. Before ending our second session, Sister Fida' instructed us to watch a video on Yasmin Mogahed's lecture and write a reflection from it. You can find the reflection that I wrote on this link: Maryam's reflection on Yasmin Mogahed's lecture.

On our third class, unfortunately Sister' Fida wasn't able to conduct a synchronous class due to unforeseen circumstances but she assigned us to write a reflection on another Yasmin Mogahed's lecture, titled as Spiritual First Aid. From that video, I noticed that Yasmin Mogahed emphasised on the importance of maintaining the relations of the religiosity/spirituality (heart) and actions. Quoting from her, "There is no way we could separate spirituality in whatever we do in our lives." She then further added that by strengthening spirituality, it doesn't mean that we need to perform salah and fast all day long because once we put our hearts and minds towards achieving Allah's blessings, then its also considered as strenghtening our spirituality. From this video that took up to one and a half of hour, I learnt that we should remember Allah in everything we do and make His blessings as the sole purpose of life. 

Unfortunately, I missed the fourth class because I was down in fever and was hospitalised for 4 days due to stomach ache :( 

Moving on, on our fifth class, we discussed about the Community Engagement Project that we were supposed to carry out. I found myself so excited about this project because of the objective of this project which is spreading positivity and good vibes to others. Anything that makes everyone happy will always intrigue my interest :D Next, on our sixth class, we discussed about SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) in relation with Islamic Perspective and apparently, this is my favourite session out of all because the title managed to capture my interest. I enjoyed every bits of this discussion and was more than delighted to listen to my classmates' opinion on this topic. At the end of this discussion, Sister Fida' mentioned that all of the goals that had been laid out in SDG are all great and will benefit us all but sadly, there is one thing that had been overlooked, which is the religion. This made me realised that religion is still and will forever be important in our everyday lives and it should be the prime purpose of living. Religion will keep us being humane and appreciating other things even more. Lastly, on our final class, Sister Fida' wasn't able to conduct a synchronous class so she assigned us to write another reflection on Yasmin Mogahed's lecture, titled as The Heart of Women; Unifying your Roles in Life. The video is an hour long and I managed to reap out a few important things that I should always keep in mind. From this video, it teaches us the way to achieve balance when juggling between your roles and responsibilities as a daughter, sister, student and friend with your life. I learnt that by rectifying my relationship with my creator Allah, He will rectify my relationship with His other creations. I also learnt about on how to balance between deen and dunya, which is to use dunya to get to the deen. With this, I tried to become more mindful and purposeful in what I am doing in my everyday life, and I put Allah's blessing in whatever I do. I vow to myself to become a better servant while not forgetting to enjoy the joys that this life could offer me.  

To sum up, there are various things and values that I learnt from this course, whether I realised it or not. I found myself to become more grateful for the privileges that I was born with as I am able to go through this ERTL period without any difficulties like limited internet connection or time-constraint. I made reflections on many aspects of life and checked up on the privileges Allah has gifted me with which I realised that all these privileges and abilities will be questioned by Allah in the end. Therefore, I am determined to make use of all of them in the best manner and help as many people as I can. I learnt to be more emphatic and thoughtful towards people. Not only that, this course has become a safe zone for me to express my opinion and ask questions regarding our respected religion. I felt welcomed, appreciated and happy with this class and I couldn't thank my instructor and classmates enough for that. This course had been nothing but a great help for me to learn to balance between dunya and deen, to enjoy and brave every joys and bumps the world could offer me while strengthening my relationship with my creator, Allah and striving to become better servant of Him every day. 

That's all for now :)

Love always,

Maryam

POST #2 for CCUB 4621

A Look in the Mirror 

Reflection on Yasmin Mogahed's Lecture

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-GNoAeroEQ

Assalamualaikum and hi, everyone! I hope everyone is doing alright and happy with your loved ones. In this posting, I am going to write down some of the insightful and beneficial input that I've gained from a lecture by Yasmin Mogahed, titled as A Look in the Mirror. My beloved instructor, Sister Fida' had asked me and my classmates to watch this video during our second session to come up with our very own reflections. 

From this lecture, there are 3 major points that had been emphasised by Yasmin Mogahed. The first point is about YOLO mentality. YOLO is an abbreviation for You Only Live Once and unfortunately, many people (especially youngsters) nowadays have been religiously incorporating this mentality in their daily lives. Apart from living in current Covid-19 pandemic, we're also facing an epidemic loss of purpose and meaning, as if everything we do in our lives is random and impromptu. Not only that, we're also bound to do things that are prohibited in Islam in order to live up to this mentality because apparently, leading a life that's purposeful and meaningful doesn't appeal to many of us right now. 

However, this YOLO mentality is completely against the teaching of Islam. Allah S.W.T mentioned this matter in our holy Quran, which will be simply worded as below: 

Oh my believers, have taqwa in me and let everyone see your plan for Tomorrow. (Quran)

Notice how the t-letter in tomorrow is capitalised? 

This is because the tomorrow is referring to our lives after akhirah. 

I love how Yasmin Mogahed used the concept of moving from our old house to a new one as the analogy to explain this part better. What happened during the process of moving? Of course, we prepare and pack our things (ex: furnitures, clothes, plants) or perhaps, we buy new furnitures for the new house. From this analogy, the new house is actually the final destination after our death and the moving process is actually our preparation to live there. Some of us furnish the new house beautifully  but sadly, some of us messed up the process and burned down the house. 

This one hits me real hard. I wonder after my 21 years of living, have I been preparing and packing my things nicely for my new home or have I been wasting time and destroyed the things? Afterall, I would want my new home to be fully furnished with beautiful things only. Upon wishing this, I realised that I should strive to become a better version of me every single day. 

The second point emphasised by Yasmin Mogahed is about relationship or friendship, in order to be specific. As mentioned by her, our company could actually be the poison that we sip every single day, without we realising. She also added, it may not be our closest friend as it could also be the things that we follow religiously or the people we look up to/idolised. The people or things that we surround ourselves with will affect us internally. The closest companion that we take in our lives will either help us furnish the new house, or burn it down. 

This made me think so deeply on who and what did I let myself to be attentive for. I have a lot of friends from different backgrounds but I think it's better to become choosy and particular on whom I  choose to be close with. I want my closest companion to become the person that I am aiming to be. For that, I will try to be a better person everyday so that my closest friends will have someone that they deserve to be with because what true friends do is complete and compliment each other in every aspect of life. 

The third point emphasised by Yasmin Mogahed is to become more spiritually healthy. We often overlook the fact that we spent too much effort including time and money to become healthy and beautiful externally. There are various choices of organic and healthy foods we can consume for our bodies and there are vast choices or skincare and makeup to doll ourselves with. Without we realising, the body and beauty will give up on us and pass away anyway, but there is only one thing that will remain forever, which is our soul. 

It is sad to realise that I had spent too much on my temporary body and beauty but forgotten about my soul that will live eternally. Upon realising this, I want to become more spiritually healthy and spend more time in nourishing my soul. I am going to change to what I am looking everyday in to something that will help me in furnishing my new home beautifully and completely. 

Before ending her lecture, Yasmin Mogahed gave us 3 meaningful advices that we all should heed for. 

1. Perform solat everyday as it is the spiritual oxygen of our heart and body. 

2. Make sure to download an app called MyDuaa as it offers daily supplications.

3. Stay connected to our holy scripture, al-Quran. 

I think that's all for now. Thank you for reading, everyone! 

POST #3 for CCUB 4621

Contributions on Community Engagement Project

Assalamualaikum and hi, everyone. I hope all of you guys are doing well during this RMCO (Recovery Movement Control Order). Today's posting is about the contributions that I have done in our community engagement project which the initial target audience is IIUM community that consists of students and staffs. 

Before I begin, I would like to recap on the project that had been carried out by me and my classmates of CCUB 4621 section 213. Each and everyone of us had been assigned to make one posting (picture or video) on our class Instagram account. The posting must include positive encouragement for everyone but the topic must be varied. As for me, I had chosen 'Practising Gratitude' while my other classmates came up with other wonderful and insightful topics like How to Manage Financial Wisely and Getting through Difficult Times'. 

During our recent synchronous class last 2 weeks, our instructor (Sister Fida') asked for more recommendation on how to gain more followers on our Instagram account so that the messages and positive encouragement could reach more people. I was unsure with my idea but I decided to speak up which I suggested to change the username of our account. I came up with the idea based on my personal experience as an avid user of Instagram since 2013. From my experience, I was much more interested to follow an account with catchy and trendy usernames rather the ones that are basic. So, we changed our username from 'Ub4_213' to 'fromsisters4you'. Alhamdulillah, all of my classmates agreed to the idea and we decided to proceed with the suggestion. 

Besides that, I also shared the profile of our Instagram account on my personal account so that it would get exposed and noticed by other people. Since many of my friends from IIUM are following me on my personal account, they kinda noticed the existence of fromsisters4you. Some of them were interested with the account and the content it offered so they decided to give it a follow in order to receive more positive encouragements on different aspects. From that, our Instagram account gained a few followers and the messages could reach a wider range of audience. 

Last but not least, the topic that I've chosen is an essential matter in our everyday lives. Practising Gratitude might seem unimportant and doesn't contribute much to the society, but actually it is one of the things that makes life more colourful, purposeful and bearable. When someone starts to incorporate the act of gratitude in his life, he will notice the smallest yet significant thing in life that will make him feel happy and content with it. Once someone is happy, he can spread and affect the people around him with the positive vibes which later will make up a community that's happy and grateful with what the life could offer. When more people gradually practising gratitude in their lives, a positive and less-stressful circle can be established. 

I think this basically sums up the contribution that I've done in our community engagement project. They might be not much, but I am more than delighted to be able to help. Thank you everyone for reading and may you have a great day ahead. 

Best regards,

Maryam.