Hawzah News Agency (Long Island, US) – James Jean-Louis, an eighth-grader in Westbury, had never stepped foot in a mosque before.

On Monday, three days after the terrorist attacks in New Zealand, he found himself at the Islamic Center of Long Island as part of a school trip to expose young people to Islam and dispel misconceptions about the world’s second-largest religion.

“It was very helpful because now I have a different point of view of Muslims,” said Jean-Louis, 14, a Roman Catholic who was born in Haiti. “When you talk about Muslims now I’m not going to think about those 9/11 guys. I am going to think of” the Muslims he met at the Westbury mosque.

The Islamic Center, the largest and one of the oldest mosques on Long Island, has long engaged in outreach to educate others about Islam.

But its members are stepping up their efforts as part of the mosque’s recently established Interfaith Institute.

“We realize that the best way to change minds is to reach out to the ones who are the most impressionable, “said Naz Khan, who heads the mosque’s children’s religion class program. “We need to sow the seeds of love amongst our youth, not just Muslim youth. “

When Habeeb Ahmed, president of the mosque, asked how many of the students had ever visited a mosque before, not a single hand went up.

Lewis White, a social worker at the school, said some students were apprehensive before the visit. “There were a lot of negative views about what Islam was all about,” he said. The trip was intended to “help them to understand it is quite the opposite.”

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