Community News 16-24

Mohammed Ahmed named Big 10 Track Athlete of the Year

University of Wisconsin at Madison’s Mohammed Ahmed was named the the BIG 10 conference’s track athlete of the year. He is  the 2014 Big Ten outdoor champion in the 5000 meters and the runner-up in the 10,000 meters.

A 2012 Olympian, Ahmed played a critical part in the helping the Badgers win their 19th track title in 14 years by scoring 18 points for the Cardinal and White at last weekend’s Big Ten meet. Ahmed helped the Badgers sweep the podium in both the 5000 and 10,000 as UW earned 49 of its 121 team points in the two events.

Ahmed also ran the conference’s best time in the 5000 meters earlier this year with a time of 13:28.02 at the Payton Jordan Cardinal Invitational, becoming the fourth UW runner in program history to break the 13:30 mark in the 5000. The senior also holds the league’s second-best time in the 10,000 meters this spring.

It marks the first time Ahmed has been honored as the conference’s track athlete of the year.

Faaris Khan, a semi-finalist at Scripps National Spelling Bee

COLUMBIA,MO–Faaris Khan, an eighth grader from Columbia, Missouri, reached the semi-final stage of the prestigious Scripps National Spelling Bee. He misspelled “siriasis,” which is sunstroke. After asking the pronunciation and the origin of the word, he spelled it “psoriasis.” That is the spelling of a skin disease. All semifinalists were to receive a $500 gift card. He had won the regional bee in 2013 and 2011.

San Diego Muslims call for Halal school lunches

Muslim leaders in San Diego are calling for the introduction of halal school lunches so that students don’t go hungry during the day. The Food Justice Momentum Team which is leading the initiative has already met with the San Diego Unified School District about a pilot program in the City Heights area where there is a larger concentration of Muslim students.
A community leader told Channel 10 News, “”[The food will] make those kids perform well in school and be happy… if you feed a kid without no good food and then they end up getting sick, it’s going to cost later.”

Canadian Muslims plant 300 trees

Around 100 Canadian Muslims came together to plan 300 trees in the municipality of peel.

“We wanted to teach kids the notion of ‘sadaqa-e-jariya’,” said Abdul Wahab, head imam of Muslim Welfare Centre, to the Brampton Guardian. ‘Sadaqa-e-jariya’ (continuous charity) is a kind of donation, which is highly encouraged in Islam. Under this category, the donor is believed to keep getting rewarded as people, as well as all other living creatures, are benefiting from the charity, even after the death of the donor.”

“We also wanted to preserve the conservation area along Mississauga and Brampton,” said Wahab.

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