Last weekend, a series of toolkits were launched during a national conference in Manchester to help Mosques better engage with women and young people. The toolkits are a result of findings of workshops held around the country which highlighted poor representation and engagement of women and young people in Mosques.
Launched by the British Muslim Forum, these toolkits are to encourage and support the development of Mosques to provide community cohesion, harmony and vital dialogues.
Whilst I would welcome any toolkits to support a better community, I feel very saddened that a place of worship seems to have been hijacked by men to the extent that women and young people feel so ostracised from this establishment. I pass two Mosques everyday and I only ever see men coming out of there.
Are Mosques in many communities just becoming an old boys network? I know that temples are often regarded as this just simply by who runs them and how they are run. Nevertheless, do religious institutions really need toolkits to tell them how best to engage with its community? Surely, religion is what binds all these people together and they would naturally come to congregate in their place of worship.
Bunty
