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Opportunity to Learn the Art of Filmmaking - Giving Ourselves A Voice

The Tessellate Institute presents a unique opportunity for aspiring documentary filmmakers. A double weekend of learning the art of documentary filmmaking from award winning professionals.
“Giving Ourselves A Voice” is a project in which young Muslims, working with established media professionals, will learn how to plan, film and edit two short documentaries on the challenges facing Muslim youth in Canada. Students will be actively involved in the process with significant input at each stage of the project, making it a true community endeavour. Gain skills in pre-production, production and post-production by working with experienced instructors whose films have been broadcast on CBC, OMNI, and Vision TV.

“Giving Ourselves a Voice” will help young Muslims explain, in their own words, what it is like to be a Canadian growing up in the prevailing culture of Islamophobia and negative stereotypes.

If interested in applying, please email [email protected] to request the attached Program Registration Form [PDF]. Forms will be due back no later than October 30, 2011. Classes will be scheduled over two weekends in winter 2012. Qualified applicants will be notified of the dates and venue.

For more information, please contact:

Nabeel Shakeel Ahmed
Project Coordinator
[email protected]

This program is produced with the support of the City of Toronto through the Toronto Arts Council. TTI also gratefully acknowledges the kind support of the Islamic Institute of Toronto.

Canadian Muslim Youth and Political Participation: A Willingness To Engage

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Canadian Muslim youth are highly engaged in volunteering in their local communities, and are open to being more involved in the political process, according to our newest study.

“Canadian Muslim Youth and Political Participation: A Willingness To Engage,” funded by the Olive Tree Foundation, and co-sponsored by Muslim, Education, Training and Outreach Service (MENTORS), is co-authored by Drs Katherine Bullock and Paul Nesbitt-Larking. The report is a pilot study, based on in-depth interviews with 20 Muslim youth, aged fifteen to twenty-four, male and female, in the GTA and London, Ontario.

It was released at the Olive Tree Foundation’s gala dinner at the Novotel Hotel, in North York, Toronto, on Sunday June 26, 2011.

The report finds that Canadian Muslim youth fit the same broad patterns of political participation as other Canadian youth – mostly not involved in formal politics, but highly engaged in informal politics, civic engagement and volunteerism.

“The interviews revealed that in spite of a media narrative that focuses on Muslim youth as alienated from Canada, our interviewees feel a deep and positive attachment toward Canada and are willing and interested in engaging in the political community,” says Nesbitt-Larking. “It is important for government and community leadership, the media, and citizens to acknowledge, affirm, celebrate, and foster such attachment, as it will set in place a virtuous cycle of encounter, opportunity, joint agency, and political achievement among young Muslims as well as between them and the wider political community.”

“The youth’s attachment to Canada is, however, fragile,” adds Bullock, “as many feel that with security certificates, the treatment of Omar Khadr by the federal government, and worries over racial profiling, that Muslims are being treated as second-class citizens in their own country.”

Bullock and Nesbitt-Larking hope the study will improve our understanding of the positive contributions Canadian Muslim youth make to Canada. They urge governments and community leaders to capitalise on Muslim youth’s willingness to engage with outreach programmes designed to involve them in the political process.

Oral History Project of Toronto’s First Mosque

From 1961 to 1968, the first mosque in Toronto was a little building on Dundas Street W. The Dundas Street mosque was a prayer hall and community centre in which social activities, major religious celebrations, and schooling took place. Today its existence is largely unknown. Mosque One: Oral Histories of Toronto’s First Mosque is a TTI oral history project that allows those connected to the mosque to tell their stories.

The importance of the project is that it helps anchor Muslim civic engagement in the history of Canada’s social fabric, demonstrating that Muslims are not newcomers to Canada unfamiliar to Canadian values of civic engagement.

The project was made possible with a grant from The Olive Tree Foundation, and co-sponsored by The International Development and Relief Foundation. We are extremely grateful for their support, as this project would not have been possible without them.

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