The Muslim holy month of Ramadan is underway worldwide, being celebrated by over 1.2 billion Muslims. And Khadija O’Connell, a Bay Area, CA artist and blogger, has created a lovely, crafty program to help children to celebrate.

In most Muslim households, Ramadan is celebrated through fasting each day, from sunrise to sunset.

“It gives us an opportunity to feel the discomfort of an empty stomach as the poor always do. It’s also a time for contemplation and self reflection, which can help us to realign our life with our values,” says Khadija, “(It’s) a time of charity; through all these things the hope and aim is to draw nearer to God. ”

Muslim children are not required to fast, although many of them like to try. And so, as a means of giving her children a way to participate in Ramadan and mark the passage of the month, Khadija began making Ramadan Calendars.

Her early calendars were made from watercolor paper, which her children would paint. Then, in 1999, Khadija created one from fabric. It had a small pocket for each day of Ramadan, much like the German advent calendar. The children could mark each day that they fasted (or tried to) on the calendar with a small star, and search the pocket for a little treat.

Family friends loved the fabric calendar, and so Khadija has made them each year since, finally outsourcing them to a cooperative of Muslim women in China last year.

Some years later, Khadija became interested in the Ramadan Challenge Project, which was organized in the San Francisco Bay Area by the Northstar School. Through the Ramadan Challenge, children and families aimed not only to avoid television and video games for the month, but also for children to form a Ramadan resolution of their own.

“The resolution is a personal commitment from the child to consistently do good actions throughout the month. Children should be the primary decision-makers in choosing a Ramadan resolution,” says Khadija. “It could be any form of goodness such as helping your parents more, making your prayers, or some other type of regular community service. The point is that the commitment be something you consciously choose as well as carry out.”

Khadija approached the Northstar School to ask about creating a separate program based on their Ramadan Challenge, and was excited when they invited her to run their program, and expand it to a global level. “That’s when it became crafty!” she says. Khadija then created a Ramadan Challenge packet for children, and offered the program through her website, Ramadan Joy. Parents can sign their children up for the Challenge, and Khadija will mail them a packet. She has sent packets to children as far away as Canada and the UK.

The Ramadan Challenge packet contains a printed paper Ramadan Calendar with star stickers, four Ramadan craft kits, a Ramadan journal for keeping notes about the experience, and a Sadaqah Box for collecting charitable donations.

The craft kits are reminiscent of Ramadan symbols — children can make translucent stars from waxed tissue, or crescent moons from felt. These are simple projects that parents and children can do together, and make holiday decorations for the home.

“Part of Ramadan … for me has always been about making our home a warm and embracing place,” says Khadija. “I try to do this with candles, string lights, flowers and a few decorations, and at the end of the month with batches of homemade cookies.”

In addition to helping children celebrate Ramadan in a meaningful way, Khadija also says of the Ramadan Challenge: “I hope to inspire creativity. It sounds so simplistic but at the core of what I want to do is create beauty and do good.”

(Top photo copyright Khadija O’Connell)

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 6th, 2007 at 9:35 am and is filed under creativity+community. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.