United Way impact council in Pennsylvania to hold meeting on Islam

St Paul's United Church. Image from internet

Selinsgrove City, Pennsylvania (IINA) - An event on Islam what it is and what its followers believe, will be the subject of the Greater Susquehanna Valley United Way’s first Diversity & Inclusion Impact Council discussion next month in Pennsylvania, The Daily Item newspaper reported.
The program is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Wednesday in St. Paul’s United Church, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.
Sobhi and Sonia Ammar, of the Sunbury Islamic Center, will lead the discussion with hopes of offering insight into a religion with more than a billion followers.
“Basically, we will relay information about the religion,” Sobhi Ammar said. “What Islam is all about, what do we believe in and maybe some Islamic law, and we’ll leave it for questions,” he added. “Whatever they have on their mind. It should be an open and honest discussion.”
He said the most concern among Muslims in the Danville community is that there is no place to worship. But at the Sunbury Islamic Center, there are no issues. “There really aren’t any issues in the community,” Ammar said. “There are no incidents.”
The United Way council is holding community-wide discussions in April on various topics involving diversity issues in the Valley. The series is titled “The Valley Together,” and all of the events will be held in St. Paul’s. Residents of all ages are invited to attend. Each session is free. The first is titled, “The Valley Together: Islam in the Susquehanna Valley.”
The United Way’s session comes a few months after Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders met in Sunbury in the first “Sunbury Together” listening session, where they sought to start a conversation about inclusion. More than 60 Valley residents attended the meeting in the Degenstein community library.
Susan Jordan, director of the Central Susquehanna Valley Mediation Center and Chairwoman of the United Way D&I Impact Council, said in a statement that they are grateful that the Ammars enthusiastically volunteered to join in the discussion next week.
“This event supports the impact council’s mission by promoting meaningful conversations about diverse experiences in our Valley,” Jordan said. “We can often learn much more from sitting down face-to-face and listening to one another than we can from turning on the television.”
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