As Salamu ‘alaykum.

As part of the American Muslim agenda for 2009, several Muslim organizations recently formed a strategic alliance. These national organizations willingly agreed to identify specific concerns that affect the national as well as international Muslim brotherhood.

United For Change is the result of newly discovered synergy found with our many partners. We have come to the table in response to a dire need for a national steering group designated to spearhead various collective Muslim campaigns. Along with the valued input of other Muslim organizations, United For Change is an initiative passionately concerned about matters plaguing Muslims regardless of culture, geography, language or race.

Although United For Change has elected to initially take on the centuries old problem of malaria, the organization considers the broad scope of problems in the Muslim world to be important. As with the devastation of malaria, United For Change is gearing up to identify and confront various important issues, which remain well off the radar screen and often out of the eye of the media; nevertheless concerns which generally afflict the poor, displace the destitute or kill millions of Muslims annually.

Our mission is to raise national awareness and demonstrate that the American Muslim community is compassionate, empathetic and action-oriented about basic maladies within the world. United For Change is poised and prepared to confront calamities distressing the Muslim body, matters that clearly require not only the pressing intervention of Muslims but must be aggressively complimented with material resources.

As Muslims, we can never believe the solution to any crisis is to disengage, or pretend that is not our problem. Regardless of the ethnicity of your Muslim community, or your chosen school of thought, United For Change was created because our one goal is to become one responsive body reflecting the compassion salient in Islam.

On a recent trip to Mali, I witnessed the debilitating affects of malaria on vulnerable Muslim communities that lacked the bed nets to control malaria, nor had the preventive medicine to manage this horrible disease. I came away from the experience saddened by its devastation. It occurred to me that in some cases the American Muslim community is polarized and desensitized to the vulnerability with which African Muslim children and adults live.

In America, we are fortunately detached from malaria nevertheless, in Africa I was dramatically moved and became committed to raising awareness of how our Muslim brothers and sisters live. I thought to create an action-oriented organization that would primarily remind the Muslim community that our religion is insistent upon affinity and cooperation throughout the global community; whether the predicament is in Asia, Africa or the Middle East, as a unified body with one goal, our concern should be to bring relief to the suffering, heal the infirmed, provide assistance to the poor, educate the disenfranchised, and be a beacon of light for the downtrodden of the world.

Is it important for the American Muslim community to understand how widespread malaria is in Africa? United For Change believes so.

In commenting on the enormity of malaria, an Ugandan doctor once said, “If you cure measles, you can close the measles ward, if you cure malaria you can close the hospital”.

Why Malaria: There are ten factors why United For Change is placing Malaria as one of its 2009 priorities:

• Annually in Africa Malaria causes approximately 420 million illnesses

• One million of those illnesses become fatalities

• The hardest hit population are children under five; an African child dies every 30 seconds; 3,000 daily

• Pregnant women are particularly vulnerable

• 12 billion dollars a year is lost because of the disease due to shrinkage of foreign investments, tourism and children out of school

• Adequately supplying bed nets with a five year life span and with a cost of less than $7 is a serious problem

• The United States eradicated Malaria in the 1950’s, however 30% of the world is still at risk

• Muslim nations may not be equally served because of the dominance of Christian relief agencies in Africa. There are no Muslim groups in Africa dedicated to eradicating Malaria

• There are Muslims in America with family members living with Malaria in Africa
  Malaria is a topic we all would agree is identifiable, manageable and with human will eradicable

In the spirit of the Obama administration that challenged the Muslim world to be creative and insightful, to abandon old disproved methods of solving the same problems, and to operate outside of the box when necessary, United For Change accepts the role to become an instrumental model and action plan endorsing the Obama vision for change.

With the importance of the moment, and in the spirit of the times we in turn extend the challenge to each and every masjid in America. Within the Muslim world we extend a challenge for us to join the fight against not only malaria but for sharing human resources, offering material assistance, extending light and hope to our brother and sisters in Islam.

Based upon the stress of our affected Muslims brothers, and in the spirit of the new presidential administration, we intend to reach out to all communities, invite your creativity, develop momentum and solicit ideas that can inform Muslims and the American people of this challenging effort.

United For Change is historic; the maiden voyage is a unique convention entitled: United For Change Presents: United Against Malaria, One Goal, One Body during Labor Day weekend at the Gaylord Hotel, just outside of Washington, D.C.

Rarely have so many Muslim speakers committed themselves to this day, and collectively found agreement in a cause of this nature.

Amongst the many confirmed speakers to attend the convention will be:

Shaykh Muhammad Ninowy, Imam Mohamed Majid, Shaykh Yasir Qadhi, Shaykh Faraz Rabbani, Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, Imam Suhaib Webb, Imam Siraj Wahhaj, Imam Zaid Shakir and Imam Syed Naqvi.

Fully supported by their partnering organizations, The United Against Malaria convention will engage a national audience in informative exchange, panel discussions, and most importantly begin critical discourse about a variety of issues within the Muslim agenda.

To reach this goal we are rallying the support of thousands concerned not only about malaria but also realize that while the climate inside the masjid may be tempered and comfortable, outside the masjid exists a world of unprivileged Muslims in need of our help.

Awareness of the predicaments of our national Ummah is crucial, and with that in mind what we hope to accomplish with you is to discuss the future of the Ummah, and through faith utilize an Islamic consciousness that embraces the problems of our global Muslim family.

We want to send a signal of brotherhood that Muslims are sensitive to human rights, optimistic that our collective concern for the global Muslim family crosses borders, and in the end we confirm our Islamic connection with our distressed brothers and sisters.

Since we believe in the book of Allah and read of the mercy demonstrated by the Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him), the pain of our Ummah is our pain, and their predicament is resolvable when we demonstrate a united front and recall the old axiom “He ain’t heavy he’s my brother”.