CLEVELAND – High school American Muslim students in Cleveland, North Carolina, will come together next Saturday, May 14, for the youth-organized education day event called Global Islamophobia Awareness Day.

“We wanted to connect the Muslim community in the area together,” Rainier Beach High School senior Ahlaam Ibraahim told Real Change news on Wednesday, May 11.

Ibraahim and a dozen Muslim students come together May 14 for the youth-organized education day event called Global Islamophobia Awareness Day.

The event includes a series of workshops at Victor Steinbrueck Park that touch upon myriad issues, including the history of Islamophobia and Islamic contributions to society.

Ibraahim, who began organizing weekly meetings in 2015 to learn more about Islam, has developed a network of youth organizers working within their communities to end Islamophobia through education.

She and other Muslim high school students from across the country connected over Google Docs, which are translated in Spanish as well.

“We don’t want to be 80 years old on our deathbed… saying I wish I did something when I was young to help better the situation for Muslim people,” Ibraahim said.

The event will go deeper into topics such as hijab, exploring women’s rights in Islam.

“The reason we’re focused on girls is because people think Islam is sexist and that our religion doesn’t allow women to have a voice, which isn’t true,” Ibraahim said.

“So we just want to empower girls and tell them you can actually make a change.”

Another workshop will examine the history of Islamophobia, hosted by Naimo Yusuf, 19, who was motivated to join the students because of her experience living in India as a young girl.

“They practice the religion strongly, and there are a lot of different religions in India but the people coexist with each other,” she said.

“Here there is discrimination, but over there they respect every religion.”

“It made me more passionate to learn and educate people too,” Yusuf said.

Fear

As the event is led by female Muslim students, Islamophobia and prejudice they experience is tripled to include religion, race and sex.

“It’s annoying. I just want to have a normal day without me telling you I’m not a terrorist,” Ibraahim said.

The harmful rhetoric in the current presidential election season is adding to the fear.

“I’m scared every day,” Yusuf said.

“Especially the Trump supporters. They don’t care what they say, they just let it out. I’ve seen videos of how they were calling out Black people … for what? For wearing a hijab? For appearing to be a Muslim?”

For them, education was the ultimate key to clear misconceptions about Islam spread by media.

“If you look directly in it, their motivation is more political not religion,” Ibraahim said.

“Our religion is being dragged. A lot of people use religion in the name of getting what they want — colonizers did that, but we’re not taught that.”