Chairman s Report 28 May 2017 / 2 Ramadaan 1438

Transcription

1 Chairman s Report 28 May 2017 / 2 Ramadaan 1438 In the name of Almighty Allah (SWT), the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, the All Seeing, the All Hearing, the All Knowing and the Ever Present. Peace and blessings be upon our illustrious and noble prophet, our leader extraordinaire and exemplary role-model, Nabi Muhammad (SAW) and all those who follow him. Respected imaamat, muttawallees and mussallees, I am once again truly honoured and humbled to deliver my 13 th Annual AGM Report on the second day of this auspicious month of Ramadaan, Alhamduliellah. It seems like last week that I delivered my previous report. Surely this has to remind us that the closer we are getting to Youmul Kieyaamah, the days, months and years are going by in a blink of an eye. Through reflection on this reality, we should be spurred on even more to get involved with the affairs of the society and thereby increase our good deeds to be presented to Almighty Allah on the Day of Atonement. We, as muttawallees, should also step out of our comfort zone to fulfill our amaanat with extra fervor and through the best of our ability and expertise, especially with the challenges that lie ahead. Honourable members, from the outset, I would like to offer our sincere gratitude and appreciation to Almighty Allah for giving us our health, strength, insight, wisdom, tenacity, fortitude, understanding and especially tolerance to work together as a team for His humble house with all its sub-structures and activities Alhamduliellah. Our current group of muttawallees has just completed our second year of a three year term and we are standing on the cusp of a Radical Building and Infrastructure Transformation. This has called for radical thinking and bold initiatives and hence the motion that will be tabled today by the Honourable Secretary to try to facilitate a smooth transition and redevelopment phase In-Sha-Allah. From being part of this committee for the last 14 years and being involved in other masjieds and social welfare committees and organizations, I have truly been able to see and experience the essence of what makes for a successful organization. Here we can without a doubt and once again with immense gratitude and appreciation lift up our hands to Almighty Allah for granting us the services of Hafith Sheikh Ebrahiem Tofa, our imaam, mentor, spiritual guide, welfare co-ordinator, teacher, death registrar, marriage officer, sports co-ordinator, fund raiser, visionary, councilor, arbitrator, etc, etc, etc. Sheikh Ebrahiem Tofa surely provides the glue that keeps this organization together, the oil that keeps the cogs turning so effortlessly and has become a role model for many in the greater community Alhamduliellah. He is so ably assisted by the most honourable and humble Sheikh Dawood Ebrahiem and Mualim Mansur Bassadien. We can just but marvel and observe in absolute awe at the transparent, supportive and respectful relationship that exists amongst them. I would once again like to take this opportunity to convey our heartfelt condolences to Sheikh Dawood on the passing away of his beloved father in Malawi a couple of months ago. May he be granted the highest abode in jannah, Jannatul Fierdous Ameen. In Mualim Mansur Bassadien s absence we would like to wish him and his wife an

2 P a g e 2 awesome stay in the holy lands of Makkah and Madinah, that he be granted the necessary health, strength, taqwa and imaan to fulfill all his obligations and be granted an Umrah Makboela Ameen Thuma Ameen. We must never ever forget the solid foundation that was casted and the sincere duas that were made by our predecessors and especially our previous imaamat through trying and challenging times to establish and maintain the light of Islam in this part of Cape Town. May Almighty Allah afford them a lofty abode in jannah and be honoured to be raised in the company of our Beloved Nabie Mohammad (SAW) Ameen Thuma Ameen. I also have to place on record our immense thanks and appreciation to all our support staff and voluntary workers who makes it an absolute pleasure to serve on this committee. Here I would specifically like to single out Hadji Abdul Nasier Samaai, Boeta Ghaziem Abrahams, Hadji Fardiel Abrahams, Abdurazack Ebrahiem and Hadja Gayaat Bassadien. Also to all our Mualims, Mualimas, Muathiens, Ghufaaths, Toeka Mandies (Ghazielas), Tuan Mandies (Ghasiels), Jumuah Collectors, Sub-Structure Co-Ordinators, Short Courses Presenters, Voluntary Medical and Health Care Professionals and Youth Leaders Jazaakumullah Khairan, without you we would not be able to function as this dynamic society, Alhamduliellah. On a sadder note I would like to acknowledge Sheikh Qarie Hafith Yusuf Noorbhaai, who spent his last days as a mussallee of this masjied and mesmerized us with his melodious recitation of the Holy Quran, who passed away on 12 July 2016, one of our stalwarts of the ladies working committee, Hadja Baranees Francis, who passed away on 17 March 2017, Hadji Abdullah Amien, the first Muslim Graphic & Layout Designer who graduated from UCT and designed our masjied s logo and who passed away on 15 April 2017 and Hadji Ismail Samodien who laid the carpets in the new section of the masjjied, who passed away on 14 May May Almighty Allah grant them and all marghoums the highest abode in jannah, Jannatul Fierdous Ameen Thuma Ameen. After the AGM last year we once again had the honour of experiencing a spiritually uplifting Ramadaan which included one of taraweegh nights being broadcasted on radio, lectures delivered by our madrassa teachers and local guest ulama, iftar with different orphanages, a SANZAF Zakaah Workshop,a Qirah Programme, itikaaf, a full Khatamul Quran being read for taraweegh, Thikrs, Salaatul Lail Programmes and a very successful Lailatul Qadr programme. We once again collected the highest amount of fitra in the Northern Suburbs towards the coffers of the Mubarak Fitra Fund. Jazaakumullah Khairan to Boeta Nasier and his helpers who assisted with the dates, beverages and Boeka Treats sales where the profits were used to augment the Ramadaan expenses. After Ramadaan we were honoured with quite a few mussallees who received a divine invitation to represent us on Arafaat for Hadj On 13 th August 2016, we held our first Masjied Open Day which co-incided with the launch of our Wellness Centre. We saw quite a few non Muslims attending this event and our Wellness Centre attended to over 100 patients. Alhamduliellah our Wellness Centre is now fully operational with doctors, specialists and healthcare professionals giving of their time on a voluntary basis to attend to the sick and aged from 14H00 to 17H00 on a Saturday afternoon. This also includes a fully fledged Dental Clinic which operates during the same time period on a Saturday. Our Qurbaan Programme once again worked like a well oiled machine where we slaughtered 143 sheep and 20 rams under the watchful eyes of some SPCA officials. Here we have to thank Boeta Ighsaan Peck and the Peck family for so selfishly giving up their home for this ibaadat to run so

3 P a g e 3 smoothly. We are however still looking for an apprentice for Boeta Ighsaan who runs this sub structure with such dedication and passion. A couple of days after Eidul Adgha we hosted a delegation of The Hayrat Foundation, a Turkish humanitarian organization together with a few members of the MJC where we had the opportunity to build relationships and learn from each other. They were also instrumental in slaughtering a large number of sheep and bulls over the Eidul Adgha period and distributing the meat in impoverished areas in South Africa commenced with our Muharram Programme which was addressed by Sheikh Mogammad Yusuf Philander and Sheikh Ebrahiem Tofa used this opportunity as is customary at our masjied to announce the theme of the year. This year s theme is No more backbiting and slandering, to specifically assist us with this evil cancer that has taken root and spreading rapidly in our society in general. On 30 October 2016 we launched our inaugural 7-a-Side Rugby Tournament at JG Mering High School where we had various clubs from across the peninsula and even as far as Paarl and Wellington who participated therein. We were honoured by the presence of one of our national players, Rosko Speckmann who attended the event. We used this event as a fund raiser but it unfortunately did not meet our expectations as it only catered for rugby lovers and fanatics. Our weekly and Saturday Madrassah is still going strong with the challenges coming from our parents who are not encouraging our children to complete their madrassa education until matriculation phase. With the number of learners dwindling, we still managed to have 13 matriculants who we honoured together with the educators at a Gala Dinner Evening at JG Meiring High School in December Our society s website was successfully re-launched under the leadership of brother Rifaat Royepen and his sons. We also aggressively solicited our community s WhatsApp numbers which we used to set-up a WhatsApp database to cost effectively broadcast all our notices from it on a regular basis. We have also successfully managed to use Mixlr to broadcast our Friday Jumuah Ghutbahs and other important events from the masjied which has listeners as far afield as Saudi Arabia and Malaysia listening in. Our Facebook Page has also become more active with many of our activities and fund raising initiatives being marketed via this platform. We are still looking to the youth to roll out an initiative in order to solicit the contact details of all Muslims in the broader Goodwood area so that we can stay in contact, provide a better service and create a mutually beneficial relationship In-Sha-Allah. With our beloved country s depressed economic growth expectations, high unemployment rate, junk status downgrade and volatile currency, fund raising is becoming more and more of a challenge. We are therefore forced to look out of the box into other avenues that will allow us to become financially independent and sustainable, without taxing our community unnecessarily. At the same time we must engage with the community and ward off other organizations and institutions who are tapping into our community without any consideration whatsoever. Alhamduliellah our Monthly Sunday Food Sales and Madrassa Entrepreneurs Days have always been well attended and we can only thanks the community for always being there for us. At our last Entrepreneurs Day we even had the international Nasheed artist, Zain Bhika who attended and interacted with the youth through various songs and nasheets. Due to the unrelenting drought that has still not and broken major water restrictions that have been imposed by the municipal authorities, we had to relook at the venue of our annual Food and Fun Fair that has been held at JG Meiring High School for the last couple of years. With all suitable

4 P a g e 4 venues pre-booked we were forced to use our own premises at the masjied to present a watered down, no pun intended. Mini Food Fair on 2 April 2017, where we could only accommodate the society s food stalls without any flea market stalls. Alhamduliellah even though we were challenged with major space and layout constraints, we still managed to present an event with a small Tea Garden where all our food was sold out and the financial benefits were proportionally better than the full on fair that we had at JG Meiring High School, with increased overheads..going forward we will have to find a balance between the 2 types of events. We will be looking at a Fund Raising Indaba in the very near future, especially with the Radical Building and Infrastructure Transformation staring us in the eyes. Once the rezoning is completed, which we anticipate will happen in the next month or two, we will have to submit detailed building plans and timelines of when the project will be starting. This will obviously lend itself to a major fund raising drive where we will have to look at all avenues to solicit funds for the biggest building and redevelopment project that this society has ever embarked upon. We are currently looking at how we can maximize our Waqaf house in Goulburn Street to augment our income and at the same time to accommodate our on-site employees. Alhamduliellah, through the dynamic classes and short courses (Electrical, Ruqyah and Business Develoment) that have been offered at the masjied premises, we have seen a steady increase in the attendance. Our adult and revert classes are also well attended while we also continue to avail our premises from Monday to Thursday from 08h30 to 13h00 to Moulana Waseem Hendricks of Panorama Masjied for his Institute of Higher Islamic Learning Darul-Tafaw-wuk. We have seen a steady growth in the number of participants in our monthly Ghatamul Quran Programme. It normally takes place on the last Sunday of every Islamic month after Fajr, in the masjied but in Ramadaan it forms part of the Lailatul Qadr Programme. The attendance at our Thursday Night Thikr sessions has increased and we have seen an increase in requests to use the masjied for small receptions after a nikah ceremony. We will therefore seriously have to consider the incorporation of a multi-purpose hall as part of the masjied redevelopment project In-Sha-Allah. Our highly active Representative Council of Learners has once again used the masjied for a sleep over and bonding session which they thoroughly enjoyed. Honourable members, our 5-a-side soccer, fishing, surfing and hiking trips have become very popular with keen interest shown by the young and the old. Even though the soccer, rugby and cricket clinic have grown in leaps and bounds, they had some challenges this year with suitable premises since the grounds at Goodwood Park Primary School became unavailable. In the beginning of May we also saw many of our learners together with their parents successfully partaking in the Dragon Boat Racing at Canal Walk organized by the MJC. This year ICONS (Islamic Council of the Northern Suburbs) ran a programme to honour the aged in all areas in the northern suburbs which was spearheaded by our very own Sheikh Ebrahiem Tofa. Alhamduliellah this went off extremely well with the help of the youth from all the surrounding areas which had the elderly extremely grateful and appreciative for this long overdue initiative. Honourable members, it is with some disappointment that I have to report that our youth seem to have gone into a state of limbo as they are not responding to the efforts to get them together to play a more meaningful role in our community and society in general. I think that we as parents and elders will have to play more of a mentoring, guiding and encouraging role to get this initiative from the ground. It seriously has to be kick started in order to gain the necessary momentum for it to become a force to be reckoned with where our future leaders can be identified, nurtured and groomed to take us to new heights In-Sha-Allah. Alhamduliellah there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel where Ismaeel Hamdulay, the chairman of our Youth League attended a Leadership Conference in Indonesia and 3 of our madrassa learners are the head learners at 2 of the primary schools in the area. Here we must congratulate the head boy and deputy head boy at Goodwood

5 P a g e 5 Park Primary, Thaakier Davids and Aqil Aziz and Daanish Pandey who is the head boy at Koos Sadie Primary School. We also have Bashiera Schroeder who is the head girl of the Representative Council of Learners at Fairbairn College. The Quloobul Moe mieneen Burial Society is still providing a much needed service in the community but we are currently sitting with a potential problem where we don t have any officially recognized Death Registers in the area due to changes implemented at the Department of Home Affairs. Due to Hadjie Amien Bassadien not always enjoying the best of health we have to seriously look at appointing a few Death Registers that can fulfill this much needed service In-Sha- Allah. We will also have to incorporate the building of a Ghusl Khaana in our redevelopment project as soon we will be prohibited from washing our deceased at home. Alhamduliellah, Hadjie Amien Bassadien is still available to assist with any janaazas and I would like to convey my sincere thanks and appreciation to him, Mualim Mansur and Hadjie Ganief Ismail for the excellent way in which they have administered this sub structure. As many of our youth who have been running with the Beitul Maal sub structure have fulfilled their deen by getting married, we have seen new faces taking over under the guidance of two of our stalwarts, Uzayr Manuel and Hafith Nafees Pandey. They still diligently see to the needs of the less fortunate families in the area. During these dire economic conditions we find ourselves in, we have seen an increase in the number of needy households in the area. On-going maintenance and trying to make the most of the limited infrastructure and facilities that we have at the masjied has always and will always be a priority of this committee. Alhamduliellah, during the past year through generous donations from our wonderful mussallees, we have seen the upgrade of our security cameras, additional storage facilities, upgrading of our ghusl khaana, installation of shoe lockers, installed additional water restrainers, improved madrassa classroom accommodation, completed the building alterations for the Wellness Centre to incorporate a waiting room, doctors rooms and a dental room. Keeping the masjied clean from unnecessary clutter is still an on-going concern as we still have to undertake a clean-up operation every few months. Alhamduliellah one of our mussallees, brother Faizel Rhoda, who is an HR Manager at Stellenbosch University has accepted the appointment onto the masjied committee to oversee all HR and Labour Relationship issues. He will be revisiting all our HR processes and procedures to see if it confirms to the necessary norms and standards while also ensuring that it conforms to the Sharia. With the wheels turning at a snail s pace at the City Council, we are waiting in bated breath for the outcome of our rezoning application which is imminent at any time now. We have also engaged with our ward councilor to request for a meeting to discuss our community s needs and aspirations, with the intension of building an all inclusive community where we can benefit and help each other into creating a better life for all. Once the successful approval of our re-zoning (Consent Usage Application) is received then we will all have to garner our resources and connections to tackle the Radical Building and Infrastructure Transformation project, In-Sha-Allah. As I said in last year s report, this project will go down in history as the most important and challenging project that this society has ever tackled since its inception in We must already start in all earnest with the identification of the most suited individuals to become part of the project teams, support structures and committees to tackle this huge task, head on, Insha-Allah. Surely as Almighty Allah has promised, he/she who are involved in building of one of His houses, Almighty Allah will build for him/her a house in jannah, Ameen.

6 P a g e 6 On a personal note, I would like to bid salaam to all mussallees, relatives and friends on my departure to Makkah and Madinah for Umrah on the 10 th June 2017 In-Sha-Allah, It is my sincere and humble request that you make dua that I be granted the necessary health, wealth, strength, taqwa, imaan and ighsaan to fulfill all my obligations to the best of my ability. That you find it in your hearts to forgive me for anything that I have said or done knowingly or unknowingly, especially in my capacity as chairman of this committee over the years and that I be granted an Umrah Makbul and Mabrur In-Sha-Allah. I will most certainly be making dua for all the mussallees, the community of Goodwood and especially the youth Ameen Thuma Ameen. Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my beloved wife, daughters, sons, son-in-law and greater family for their unrelenting support in allowing me to serve on this committee. Alfu Shukran to the amazing and supportive families of my fellow muttawallees, for their understanding and sacrifices they have to make so that we can fulfill this noble duty for Almighty Allah (SWT s) sake. Not forgetting our wonderful mussallees, the generous and ever supporting business people, the incredible greater Muslim and Non-Muslim communities of Goodwood and its surrounding areas, for their on-going support in allowing us to hold the flag of Islam high in the northern suburbs, Insha-Allah. Jazaakumullah Khairan Mogamad Safedien