"Don't believe sound bites and stereotypes, you have to go a little bit farther and learn a little bit more," Farah Pandith, the U.S. Special Representative to Muslim Communities, stated when we spoke with her earlier this week.

 

      Farah was sworn into the newly created office in September, 2009 by Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton. During the ceremony Farah recalled her upbringing in Massachusetts, how her mother raised Farah and her brother to be aware of the ways of life, and the fortune they had to be American. She states, "I also grew up knowing there was no contradiction between being a Muslim and being an American. For me, it was simply normal. It was the American way."

 

      Education, Farah explained, is crucial to the development and future survival of humanity. She continued with a surprising detail, "The fact of the matter is that Islam came to America at the beginning of our country-it came with the slaves...Muslims in America come from every part of the world. We are incredibly diverse. So that's the interesting thing about our natural history here as Americans, that we ought to know the same way we ought to know about other faith groups and the same way we ought to take the time to understand what it is that we're talking about. There are more Muslims that live outside the Middle East than in it in this world."

 

     Farah Pandith is a woman of great achievement and intelligence, with aspirations to change the way we think about the world. She was partially responsible for the "2011 Hours Against Hate" Facebook campaign, detailed by Farah, "They're asking young people to volunteer time for somebody-an hour, ten hours, 100 hours- to basically walk in the shoes of somebody different, somebody who doesn't look like you, pray like you, or is like you." To date the campaign has received over 12,000 hours of volunteer time.

     Farah places great importance on the youth of today for our future success. She calls this generation the 'Facebook generation' and talks about how the young have a new way of speaking, a new way of thinkign, and a new way of communicating. We believe Farah is an inspiration, given her great success and acheivements, especially to the young women of today, so we asked her if she had any words of wisdom to pass on. She replied, "Here in America, we have to get the right idiom to young girls, that is that you must dream big. You MUST dream big. You can dream big. You are absolutely capable of reaching your goals."

     There is much more to Farah than we could cover in this article; she will discuss her job, what she is seeing on the ground in her work, and why it is so important for us to engage with the Muslim Community on October 4th, 2011 at the Center for the Arts. She will speak in the Center Theater at 7:00 pm, and because this is a community event, admission is FREE, no tickets needed!

 

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