The Importance of Imams, Community Leaders, and Ulama to Connect with Local Coronavirus Support Groups

Thou­sands of coro­n­avirus sup­port groups have emerged across the coun­try. As Mus­lims, we already have com­mu­ni­ties estab­lished around our masajid, Ula­ma and places of learn­ing. It is cru­cial for Imams, Ula­ma and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers to act as a link between coro­n­avirus sup­port groups and their own respec­tive congregations.

Covid-19 Mutu­al Aid UK has a web­site ded­i­cat­ed to find­ing your local group. We urge all Imams, Ula­ma and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers to con­nect with these local groups to lend sup­port and act as a link between hard to reach groups and wider com­mu­ni­ty efforts.

Based upon the most recent Cen­sus data, we know the seg­ments of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty that are hard to reach by Coro­n­avirus Sup­port Groups are:

The elder­ly

4% of British Mus­lims are over 65 years old. The elder­ly are less like­ly to have access to social media and will miss out on sup­port pro­vid­ed by local initiatives.

Our elder­ly must be engaged via tele­phone, email or oth­er means that they have access to.

Main lan­guage is not English

Over half (53%) of British Mus­lims are not born in the UK. This means that Eng­lish is prob­a­bly not their first lan­guage, mak­ing it hard­er to engage in sup­port groups that oper­ate entire­ly in English.

Mul­ti-lin­gual Imams, Ula­ma and com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers must reach out to those who are not pro­fi­cient in Eng­lish so that they will be able to ben­e­fit from sup­port groups and guidelines.

Work­ing-class

Com­mu­ni­ty sup­port vol­un­teers tend to be a mid­dle class because of their eco­nom­ic resources and for­mal work­place train­ing which enable them to organ­ise such ini­tia­tives. By con­trast, a large pro­por­tion of Mus­lims are work­ing class. Just under half of British Mus­lims live in the 10% most deprived areas in Eng­land. This means they are less like­ly to be picked up by com­mu­ni­ty sup­port groups.

We must make sure that as many Mus­lims as pos­si­ble are includ­ed to access cru­cial sup­port. Our lead­ers have a very impor­tant role to play. By con­nect­ing with wider sup­port groups, we can help and be helped by such endeav­ours. Uni­ty across the coun­try is cru­cial in these try­ing times.

Local­Coro­n­avirus­Sup­port­Groups