By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
THE leaders of the already-existing mosque on Belgrave-Hallam Road have donated $5000 to the Royal Children’s Hospital.
Mohammed Janif, a member of the Islamic Education and Welfare Association of Dandenong (IEWAD), said the IEWAD mosque at 131-133 Belgrave-Hallam Road in Narre Warren North, had been involved in “charity work ever since we opened the doors,” about six years ago.
Mr Janif said he and the other members of the mosque wanted to share their goodwill with the public in the wake of recent events.
Last month, hundreds of people packed the Narre Warren North Public Hall for a community meeting to discuss the controversial application for another mosque at 365-367 Belgrave-Hallam Road.
It has been lodged by the Saarban Islamic Trust – not IEWAD – and Mr Janif stressed his mosque had nothing to do with the current application.
Mr Janif said his mosque’s donation to the Royal Children’s Hospital was a way of portraying to people that the members are “part of the community”.
“We live here, our children go to the hospital – why not help these people out?” he said.
“This is my home.”
As well as donating to the hospital, Mr Janif said the IEWAD mosque members had participated in a range of volunteering work at local soup kitchens, for the WA bushfires, the floods in Fiji, and for asylum seekers and the disadvantaged in the local community.
Mr Janif also welcomed people to visit his mosque to meet with its members if they wanted to learn more about how the organisation gives back to the community.
“We welcome anyone,” he said.
“They can have a cup of coffee with me and we’ll have a bit of a chinwag.”
In recent weeks, a Facebook page trying to stop the new mosque being built at 365-367 Belgrave-Hallam Road in Narre Warren North has been set up, collecting 9852 likes to date, with a planning application to build the ‘place of worship’ currently before Casey Council.
The application, which includes plans for a school, is scheduled to be discussed at a Special Council Meeting on 26 April.
The Saarban Islamic Trust has since set up a rival petition at change.org which has 2118 supporters to date.
