Community News (V14-I24)

Hypersolar appoints Dr. Syed Hussaini

SANTA BARBARA,CA–HyperSolar, the developer of a new   technology to produce renewable hydrogen using sunlight and any source of water,  announced the addition of Dr. Syed Mubeen Jawahar Hussaini and Wei Cheng to the company’s technology development team. Dr. Hussaini will lead HyperSolar’s development of a low cost, solar powered nanoparticle technology for extracting renewable hydrogen from water. He received his bachelor’s degree in Chemical and Electrochemical engineering from the Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI), India, and his master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, India.

He earned his Ph.D. degree in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from the University of California, Riverside in 2009 and is currently a post-doctoral researcher at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Hussaini holds significant proficiency in developing nanostructure based solar-active materials for solar fuel production and investigating fundamental energy conversion processes using plasmonic nanosystems. Dr. Hussaini has published over 15 peer-reviewed papers.

Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation

DALLAS,TX– The Verizon Foundation awarded Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation a grant  to expand its domestic violence and relief services to under served Muslim women and children in Dallas and Collin Counties. Verizon presented the $10,000 grant, which will help fund the summer 2013 opening of the Peaceful Oasis shelter, at Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation’s Mother’s Day Luncheon.
“We are proud to contribute to Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation so they can provide a safe haven for victims who face significant cultural and language barriers to accessing mainstream services,” said Michelle Robinson, president of Verizon’s southeast region. “Protecting victims and building awareness of this issue in every community, every language and every cultural group is essential so we can end domestic violence as the number one health issue facing women in America.”

At the award event, Executive Director Hind Jarrah led attendees in celebrating the organization’s accomplishments empowering Muslim women and their families and outlined the significant work that needs still to be done to support this under-served community. In addition, Dallas Women’s Foundation President & CEO Roslyn Dawson Thompson provided a keynote address on the role of women’s organizations in affecting change in society.

Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation Executive Director Hind Jarrah said, “We are extremely grateful for this generous grant from the Verizon Foundation, which will enable Texas Muslim Women’s Foundation to reach more families in need with specialized services and multilingual professional staff to help them break free from violence while remaining a part of their faith-based communities and creating peace in the home.”

OK prisons serve more halal food

BOLEY,OK–Halal meals served in Oklahoma prisons are on the rise. According to the Oklahoman halal meals served at Oklahoma Department of Corrections facilities increased from 7,424 in January to 11,502 in April.

They made up more than 38,000 of the 6.5 million total prison meals served during the first four months of 2012, said department spokesman Jerry Massie.

Just over 600 Oklahoma inmates attended Muslim religious services in May, Massie said.

A federal appeals court last year ruled in favor of Madyn Abdulhaseeb, aka Jerry L. Thomas, a Muslim inmate currently housed at Lawton Correctional Facility, who complained pork-free and meat-free meal alternatives offered to Muslim inmates did not meet dietary guidelines established by Islamic law.

He was  awarded $63,000 as part of the settlement agreement. The state also agreed to provide him a halal meal option and to locate a vendor that will provide festival and holiday foods to Muslim inmates.

Faith leaders call for patient privacy

WASHINGTON D.C.–The Second International Summit on the Future of Health Privacy, scheduled for June 6th-7th, 2012, at the Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C., will feature representatives from three major religions–Catholicism, Islam, and Judaism. These speakers, representing almost half the world’s population and the majority of the population of the United States, will address how their particular faith traditions insist on the autonomy of the human person.

In the panel, “Cultural Perspectives on Religion and Privacy,” they will explore how the importance of personhood in the monotheistic religions implies that individuals have a natural right to control information pertaining to their own bodies.

Moderating the panel will be Steven W. Mosher, President of the Population Research Institute.Panelists include Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas);  Jennifer Kimball, Executive Director of theCulture of Life Foundation, Najah Bazzy, RN, CEO of Diversity Specialists and Transcultural Health Care Solutions; and Rabbi Noah Fabricant, assistant rabbi at Washington Hebrew Congregation in Washington, DC.
Panel members will argue for the robust protection of patient health records using attribute-based access control (ABAC) technology so that the individual, not some distant government bureaucracy, maintains absolute control over the release of confidential health information to third parties.

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