Where are the Sisters? Reasons Needed.

Well, since we're all talking about these issues on the other thread now, I feel its pertinent for me to address the cost/babysitting concerns and the general lack of attendance by sisters.

Issue #1: Babysitting
Having more brothers than sisters is abnormal considering that the opposite is true for all the other Qabail. As I mentioned I do not think that not having babysitting is the main reason the brothers are largely outnumbering the sisters.

This is not to underestimate the value of having something like onsite babysitting at the class location, which would be a great help to many mothers and in particular breastfeeding mothers or mothers with small children.

On-site babysitting is definitely something we would like to offer for future classes, and as was mentioned there was an effort to make arrangements for it at this class.

Because offering onsite babysitting would necessitate that we hire a babysitter for 37 hours in total (since the wasat volunteers are taking the class and it would not be fair to them to ask them to miss part of it as they are paying too), we definitely need to have a rough-estimate of how many children we are expecting for babysitting. If we just hire a sitter without ascertaining how many children are coming this causes two problems:

1) If only a small group of children show up the cost per child would increase
2) The Qabeelat may end up shouldering a large bulk of the cost

We want to make babysitting affordable for everyone, and as was mentioned we would like to make an effort to raise money to contribute to paying for a babysitter to make babysitting afforadable if not possibly free. If AlMaghrib could offer some sort of stipend for this expense that would also be a possibility for covering these costs.

In the mean time what I suggest is that we set up a Wasat Babysitting email list. This way sisters know where to go to say, "yes, i need babysitting for X amount of children.", and we can also discuss cost and other issues there too.

We definitely do not want sisters to feel alienated because of their children or frusturated with the "no children in the class" policy of AlMaghrib. insha'Allah we would like to provide alternatives.

I also think its important to mention though that as more sisters get married and begin to have children, we might see a natural decline in the number of sisters attending, especially if their children are small and are still breastfeeding.

As Brother Siraaj mentioned the typical AlMaghrib student who is female is not a young mother but rather a young college-age student who may or may not be married but many times without kids. I think that the issue of babysitting is not one of the main reasons that the number of sisters was small.

Issue Two: Cost
Cost will always remain an issue regardless of what Qabeelah we are talking about. People raising an eyebrow at the tuition fees is not something particular to Chicago. This issue is also not gender-specific so it should not be effecting only the female population and not the males.

As was mentioned Wasat also has many means for distributing scholarships or setting up payment plans with students, so this really should not be an issue. We had many students contact us about scholarships and alhamdulillah we were able to be very accomodating. If this is an issue for people then inshaAllah if they make the effort to seek out a solution like contacting us, then insha'Allah it won't be a problem.

Why I think Babysitting and Cost are Not the Main Reasons for Lack of Sisters:
My main reason for thinking that these are not the main reasons, besides what I already mentioned in this post, is that at IlmFest both of these issues were eliminated because:
1) we had free onsite babysitting which was advertised
2) the cost was very low ($10)

Nonetheless even at IlmFest we had many more brothers than sisters attending even though many moms attended.

I really think the issues are more underlying and many of the sisters who are native to Chicago will be able to offer a great deal of insight. I would really love for everyone, brothers and sisters, to give this some serious thought and to post you feedback and thoughts about this. If you feel it would be better to email me you can do that as well at liverella at gmail dot com.

And brothers, please don't kill the thread by jumping on and saying things like "because wasat brothers rock!" or something like that, although it is a possibility that masha'Allah the brothers in Chicago are just exceptional. your input is still appreciated.

Jazakallahu khairun.

40 views and no responses? come now, wasat! youre all over the other threads. if you dont respond now we'll have to take care of this after the sisters q and a. i'll leave it to you...

PS this was posted by Olivia.

I was one of the people who suggested on-site babysitting.

But the more I think about it, I'm not sure if that will really solve the problem either. Based on my experience with different dawah activities and retreats, we agressively advertised babysitting and still only a few sisters took advantage of the babysitting (most were sisters we were already familiar with anyway).

Another issue might be cost - many of the sisters in your area (I'm assuming) are either a) students or b) married with or without kids. In case b, most of the sisters are living off of their husband's income and if their husband is not down with them attending the class (or rather, pushing them to attend the class) they may not want to spend the money.

I think every BROTHER from Wasat needs to make SURE that his wife, mother, sister, daughter... whoever it may be, is attending the classes. And they need to make every attempt to make it easy for the women in their family to seek knowledge. MashaaAllah many brothers are already doing this (I know some Hayl brothers weren't even able to attend the class, but they made the trip just so their wives/sisters could attend, may Allah reward them, ameen). I think this is a really good first place to start... survey the brothers and see if their mahrams are taking the class, and if they're not, find out why not.

[Sirius1]

What was the male-female ratio?

[UmmSakinah]

Wow, am I the only one who thinks babysitting is the major part of the problem? that is true though, why aren't sisters without kids attending?

I had to go through so much hassle to leave my kids back in Columbus, and I thought other mothers are probably not going because of babysitting issues. Badr helped us out significantly with babysitting masyaallah may allah reward them,(I can't thank the ameer and ameerah enough for this, because my daughter was sick and I had to request for them to leave the door open for me for a session, which I feel really bad about till today) and I left the kids back home too when we went to Dearborn for Ulum Al Quran.
This(HOK in Chi town) will probably be my last out of town class because I've been leaving the kids too much and it's not that easy (since both my husband and I are taking the classes and even if he doesn't he still has to accompany me anyway).

Makes me feel like the sisters without kids are losing so much for missing the classes. May the Wasatians get more sisters insyaallah.

Now you have to share with us Haylers how you got so many brothers to attend. We have the opposite problem.

I apologize for not offering any insights since I'm not a native of Chicago, but I felt the need to highlight how quite important babysitting still is, because a sister is bringing her daughter all the way from Columbus and her husband is babysitting her (he's not taking the class). Aren't there a lot of mothers with young children who should or want to take the class?

[Hala]

Originally Posted by UmmSakinah

Now you have to share with us Haylers how to got so many brothers to attend. We have the opposite problem.

Yes, please do share! We're having the opposite problem.

[Irtiza Hasan]

About 58% of AlMaghrib Institute students are sisters. (that was an estimate taken sometime early this year)

One factor that I know aided all of the qabaa'il is that sisters have their own presence, influence and independence within the qabeelah. They do not wait to see what the brothers are doing to react to it.

Perhaps it would be good to consult one of the veteran Ameerahs and her staffs for some pointers or advice. I would suggest Durbah. Wallahu alim.

Originally Posted by IrtizaHasan

About 58% of AlMaghrib Institute students are sisters. (that was an estimate taken sometime early this year)

One factor that I know aided all of the qabaa'il is that sisters have their own presence, influence and independence within the qabeelah. They do not wait to see what the brothers are doing to react to it.

Perhaps it would be good to consult one of the veteran Ameerahs and her staffs for some pointers or advice. I would suggest Durbah. Wallahu alim.

Very good advice right here.

Siraaj

[Umm Nusaybah]

Maybe it's because a lot of the aunties have trouble understanding English.

as-salaamu 3laykum

Just to share some of my thoughts.

I have been to Chicago many times and have spent a lot of my time at Islaamic Foundation etc...I think that maybe someone can look into these ideas of mine deeper but I feel that a few reasons may be,

1. Lack of interest amongst the young sisters. I have been to Islamic Foundation and well let us just say that you can smell "culture" from the minute you enter. Unfortunately, it seems to me from those i have gotten to greet, talk to for a few minutes, made salah next to, that a lot of them are really young and into the dunyaa' in their own ways. That in itself seems to contribute to this lack of interest.

Someone who isn't used to attending lectures, and is so used to being into fashion (what new dupatta color is in), may not be as interested.

2. It definitely seems there are a lot of ahnaaf in chicago. (wow actually)

From that I can make a guess (that's all these are) that a lot of them are used to just going to the Masjid and maybe Devon at most and coming home. I see the masjid jami` and I see how there isn't even a fixed jumu`ah area for the sisters, and the area could get a little work done for sisters not to feel afraid. So the older sisters, the married sisters that populate certain masaajid may just also not have a lot of interest, because well to them it is makruh to even go to the Masjid in our times. So maybe they lack support in such things.

3. You gotta remember this isn't the typical halaqah at the masjid. This is a class that from the outside seems to be ran by youth, with an official institute, etc... and that in itself may be too much for some who are not used to that at all.

So my advice is for someone to dissect my guesses and try to come up with solutions.

For now I advice the sisters who go to al-maghrib to make sure they greet all of the sisters when they go to the Masjid. Not to mention the beautiful hadeeth of the Nabi (sallAllaahu `alayhi wa sallam) where he said, the one who initiates the salam is free of kibr. (al bayhaqi's shu`b al iman)

Greet them and have your husbands talk to their husbands. Share your notes with them and arrange little halaqahs at the masjid where everyone can join in on a topic that was mentioned in one of the classes.

Just some thoughts.