(Photo credit: Sarah Kladler/Fourth Estate)
Muslim Students Association decorates capes for sick children as part of Peace Week
The Muslim Students Association participated in Mason’s annual Peace Week by helping local sick children feel like superheroes.
The event was called Capes for Kids, and the Muslim Students Association (MSA) and volunteers decorated superhero capes that they would later deliver to Inova Children’s Hospital in Fairfax. Participants could also donate $5 to the cost of the event.
“We wanted to do this project because kids in the hospital aren’t really allowed to have much contact with the outside because of their illnesses,” said MSA Outreach Coordinator Mohammad Azraf Ullah. “Every little bit helps in giving them some interaction and comfort in their lives, including giving them inspiration and hope through superhero capes.”
Ullah continued that MSA members originally wanted to make capes with the kids but were unable to do so because of the kids’ illness. They decided instead to make the capes on campus and deliver them to the hospital.
As for the future, Ullah said MSA members might make capes again, or they may aim to do something that would allow participants to interact more with the kids.
“This might be an event we do in the future or [the MSA might do] something more interactive so that we are able to bring more joy and comfort into the children’s lives. We hope all these capes make a difference, no matter how small it may be,” Ullah said.
The MSA’s Capes for Kids event was just one of many events held by Mason organizations as part of the annual Peace Week. According to its Facebook page, Peace Week is about exploring, promoting and celebrating peace in its many different forms. The page explains that this includes inner peace, environmental peace, societal peace and interpersonal peace, to name a few.
For MSA students, celebrating Peace Week meant helping the less fortunate, Ullah said.
“Peace is a wonderful term in which it can be applied to many different aspects in life. For us, it meant that we wanted to bring a little bit of peace into these children’s lives. Even the slightest bit of comfort or smile means a lot to people, when they go through so much hardship,” Ullah said. “We have also been inspired by other events, by the other organizations on campus, and we hope they also have been inspired by us.”
Ullah continued that in the future, the MSA hopes to collaborate with other organizations on campus to bring more peace and relief to the local community and beyond.
“We thank the Mason community for giving us the opportunity to the host the event,” Ullah said, “and we sincerely thank all the attendees that took some time to come [out and] help decorate capes for these sick children.”
