Small Town Initiative

"We should make greater effort in smaller towns and villages for the inhabitants of these places are more likely to listen to and accept the message of Islam."  
    - Hazrat Khalifat-ul-Masih V (aba) - Friday Sermon, Oct 10, 2004

The second area of focus for the Department of Tabligh during the 2010-2011 Khuddam year will be to identify and create a relationship with a small town or urban area in every Majlis across the country. Huzur (aba) has instructed us to focus on small towns for several years, and this year we will be making a concerted effort to implement this program across the country, InshaAllah. We are defining a Small Town as one that has a population of less than 3,000 people. For those Majalis who have difficulty finding small towns in their area, they have the option of selecting an urban area in their city instead. Either way, the focus will be to engage in on-going activities with this small town or urban area throughout the year so that a relationship is established.

HOW DO I GET STARTED?
There are two ways to approach a small town, depending on whether or not your local Jama'at President and Jama'at Tabligh Secretary have already identified a small town. If your local President and/or local Jama'at Tabligh Secretary has already selected a small town and begun the process, the role of MKA will be the support that initiative by engaging in ongoing activities throughout the year. If you live within a Jama'at that has not yet selected a small town, then the local MKA Majlis will take ownership of researching small towns with a population of less than 3,000 people that is within driving distance (approximiately within an hour). Once you have identified a small town, the local Qaid and local Nazim Tabligh should present this to the local Jama'at President and local Jama'at Tabligh Secretary and propose this to be the small town you engage with for this Tabligh initiative. Make sure you have all the following pertinent information in your proposal:

• Name of small town
• Population
• Race, Age, and Gender demographics
• Distance from Masjid
• Name of Mayor
• List of local Newspapers

Please click here for a template you can use for this proposal. Make sure to localize it by changing the name of the city in the header, the address information in the footer and of course all information about the small town in the body of the proposal.

Once the small town has been approved, the local Jama'at President and local Jama'at Public Affairs Secretary should contact the Mayor of the small town (by phone and/or letter) in order to request an in-person meeting with the Mayor and his/her staff to introduce them to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community.  When a meeting has been setup, we request that the local Qaid also attend the meeting along with the local Jama'at President and local Jama'at Public Affairs Secretary. During the end of the meeting, the Mayor can be presented with the idea of organizing a joint Interfaith Symposium to promote understanding and brotherhood among people of different faiths. It is possible that the Mayor can then put you in touch wiht a Church. After this meeting, organize a similar meeting with the local Police department. Try to get the Mayor to be present at the Interfaith Symposium.

HOW MANY ACTIVITIES PER YEAR?
In an effort to establish a relationship with this Small Town or Urban neighborhood, we need to engage in ongoing, regular activities with them. Activities can include:

• Meetings with Mayor
• Flier Distributions
• Interfaith Symposiums
• Khidmat-e-Khalq activities such as blood drives or soup kitchens
• Waqar-e-Amal activities such as road or park clean-ups
• Booths in any Saturday market they may have
• Interviews with local Media
• Etc

We understand that the number of activities you will be capable of engaging in depends heavily on your Majlis size since smaller Majalis will have difficulty performing large numbers of activities. So the target of activities is as follows:

Small Majalis (Tajneed less than 20 Khuddam) - 4 activities this year
Medium and Large Majalis (Tajneed greater than 20 Khuddam) - 6 activities this year

TRACKING OUR PROGRESS
As the year goes on, we will be monitoring our progress towards this target of working with such a small town in every Majlis across the country. Please keep coming back to this page to see how far we have come.

For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact the Tabligh team at tabligh@mkausa.org.

Contact Information:
Waqas Asghar
Muhtamim (Director) of Tabligh
Email: tabligh@mkausa.org