December 4th, 2002

Bismillah al-rahman al-raheem. Asslamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barackatuh.

My name is Irfana Anwer. On behalf of the KARAMAH family and my self, I’d like to welcome you all to KARAMAH: MUSLIM WOMEN LAWYERS FOR HUMAN RIGHTS. We are honored that all of you were able to join us today in breaking fast in the special month of Ramadhan and we are looking forward to spending the rest of the evening getting to know you.

Some of us were just led in Maghreb prayers, the evening prayers by our Imama, Sanaa’ Affandi who also happens to be on KARAMAH’s board of directors. Sanaa’ graduated from the University of Beirut with a degree is Arabic and Islamic Literature.

This evening promises to be an enjoyable and memorable one, dinner will now be served, and then Dr. Rice will join us for coffee and dessert later on in the evening. At that point we will all hear from Dr. al-Hibri and Dr. Rice.

We invited Dr. Rice to join us in the final days of Ramadhan to experience it’s warm and peaceful atmosphere as well as to meet a representation of socially conscious Muslim women and other distinguished members of our society, from different walks of life. We intend this evening to be one where we can enjoy each others company and build bridges between various communities through their women.

I would now like to briefly give you an inside glimpse, an example of what we at KARAMAH have been investing our efforts in.

A key goal of KARAMAH is the mentoring and training of the next generation of Muslim women leaders and to implement this we are in the process of organizing a unique and intensive leadership training program for women. The purpose of this program will be to encourage young Muslim women law students to take leadership roles in their communities.

We also firmly believe in being inclusive and have had many opportunities to engage in inter-faith dialogue with various organizations. This is a very important philosophy of ours and has resulted in our partnering with other faith based and secular organizations to plan educational outreach, media campaigns and a public demonstration of solidarity, collaboration and inclusiveness across lines of difference. The main goal of our partnering with such organizations recently has been to fight bias, bigotry and racism post 9/11.

KARAMAH also receives countless, unsolicited requests for legal help from members of the Muslim community. We are currently expanding our existing list of pro-bono attorneys to meet the legal needs of indigent people who contact us.

Additionally, we are active in forming ties with students on various campuses nationally and through our representatives, liaise with the Muslim students and plan outreach activities with them. In fact, KARAMAH in my opinion, owes it's success and existence to the numerous ethnically diverse volunteers and interns that freely donate their time and who are an integral part of the KARAMAH structure. And on this note I would like to thank them all for their time and effort in putting together this event, without their input tonight would not have been possible. Could all the interns and volunteers please stand up and identify yourselves. And if any of the guests have question for or comments about KARAMAH, please feel free to discuss it with the interns.

I hope that you all have a wonderful evening and would like to thank you for your time and patience. As I said earlier, it is an honor to have you all here today and I hope to carry on meeting you at events that we organize in the future.