You can now share your experiences at the CresWalk2006 Discussion Forum with fellow CresWalkers and Runners where you will also find more photographs from the day.
To the many of you who sent in emails, SMSs and phone messages regarding the event, the team at Crescents of Brisbane would like to extend its sincere gratitude for your kind words and constructive comments.
Oh! What a Gal
Galila and proud husband, Emadeldin Elshemy
This year's Queensland Multicultural Award for Community Services went to Mrs. Galila Abdelsalam.
At a dignified ceremony held on Wednesday at Parliament House, Galila was presented with a trophy and certificate by Premier Peter Beattie and Multicultural Affairs Minister Chris Cummins
Minister Cummins said Ms Abdelsalam, who arrived in Australia with her husband and son from Egypt in 1983, had been tireless in her work helping resettle Muslim families and caring for elderly Muslim people living at home.
“Galila joined the Logan Multicultural Neighbourhood Centre and soon became a member of its management committee and then Vice President,” he said.
“A highly driven and caring person, she went on to found the Islamic Women’s Association of Queensland (IWAQ) in 1991, of which she was president for two years. She is now a management committee member of the Immigrant Women’s Support Service and the Multicultural Community Council of the Gold Coast.
“Galila is also manager of the IWAQ, preferring to give other people the opportunity to take on the job of president as she concentrates on women’s issues and aged care. She has spent the past 13 years helping settle new migrants and in her work she has brought together a wide range of ethnic groups from different nations and continents.
“She has helped people from Albania, Bosnia, Lebanon, the Horn of Africa, Afghanistan, Fiji, Indonesia and Malaysia settle into new lives in the Smart State.
“Galila’s work is voluntary and her dedication an inspiration.”
Ms Abdel-Salam said she was thankful for having been given the opportunity to work to improve the lives of Muslim and other women.
“When I came here from Egypt, I came with three bags – one was my religion and my values, another was my history and the third was my experience, knowledge and education,” she said. “In Sydney I added a fourth bag, that of negativity when I was confronted with discrimination.
“So the first opportunity we had, we came to Queensland and now I have replaced that negative bag with a positive one. In Queensland people are more accepting and more ready to give you a chance and I am very thankful that I have had the opportunity here to do what I can to help improve the lives of all women.”
The Member for Stretton Stephen Robertson said the Queensland Multicultural Awards provided the perfect opportunity to highlight how people’s shared humanity cut across all cultural and religious boundaries.
“The Smart State is leading the nation not just in economic terms but in our commitment to and appreciation of diversity,” he said. “Galila is one of the leaders helping to maintain our enviable reputation for cultural harmony and inclusiveness and I commend her for her hard work.”
It's a
Girl! And It's a Girl!
Amina
and Yunus Paruk have become grandparents, not
once, but twice, in the space of two days.
Their
daughter, Asiya and husband, Yahya Moola,
are the proud parents of a 3.3kg girl who was delivered
on Friday.
Ebrahim
Paruk and wife Mariam brought home the second
grandchild yesterday (Saturday) weighing in at 3.1kg.
Both babies were delivered at the Sunnybank Private
Hospital.
CCN wishes
the families all the every best for the future.
PS. CCN's
intelligence sources reveal that the stork will be a
little busier than usual in Kuraby during the next few
weeks. Watch this space for (water) breaking news, as
and when they pop up.
Yusuf Islam New Album
Yusuf Islam, the pop star formerly known as Cat Stevens who left the wild world of the music business in the 1970s, is returning with a new album that he hopes will bridge the divide between Islam and the west.
“There were one hundred reasons for leaving the music industry back in 1979, not least because I had found what I was looking for spiritually. Today there are perhaps one hundred and one good reasons why I feel right making music and singing about life in this fragile world again,” Islam said.
The as-yet untitled album, due for release this autumn on Universal Music’s Polydor label, was produced by Rick Nowels, who has also worked with artists such as Madonna and Dido.
“Much has changed, but today I am in a unique position as a looking glass through which Muslims can see the west and the west can see Islam,” Islam added.
Nick Earls delivered this speech at the Multicultural Awards Ceremony in Parliament during the week:
"Almost a quarter of Australians are migrants. Another quarter of us have a parent who migrated here. Some of us can trace our connection to this land back tens of thousands of years. There is not one way to be an Australian, and that’s a good thing.
A country that knows only one way of doing things – that can access only one solution to a problem – is ill-equipped for change. The countries that thrive in the decades ahead will be those that handle change well. Our diversity helps equip us to handle change well.
There is no such thing as a one-piece jigsaw puzzle. There are many pieces to the picture that make up Australia, and it’s a more vibrant and compelling picture because of that.
It is nonsensical to view multiculturalism as some involuntary experiment that might succeed or fail. In a highly mobile world, it’s inevitable. It is our present and our future, and it can be one of our great strengths. Tonight we celebrate achievers from a range of different backgrounds achieving in a range of different areas – because that’s how this state works, and keeps working. Our four individual achievers have made contributions connected with food, wine, sport and business, and that sounds like a great combination to me. I’m a particular fan of Angelo’s contribution to Queensland’s growing wine industry, and I try to acknowledge it by sampling his product fairly often. Always in moderation, of course.
I’m one of the quarter of us who are migrants. I arrived by plane from Northern Ireland in 1972. My first few days at Ascot State School were not the easiest, since far too many people came up to me saying ‘You’re the foreign kid, aren’t you? Say something.’
My mother’s first shift as a doctor in Casualty at the PA Hospital wasn’t easy either. Her first patient came in and said, ‘I’ve been a bit crook since a sheila kicked me in the nuts.’ Two weeks off the plane from Northern Ireland, there’s none of that that makes sense. My mother didn’t know what to say. The patient tried to help. He said, ‘Do you want me to drop my dacks?’ Still no good. My mother was still speechless. So he said, ‘Do you want me to drop my tweeds?’ And my mother, still mystified, thought she’d better start looking a bit more involved, so she said ‘All right.’ And the next thing she knew his pants were on the floor.
On my second day at Ascot State School, the class divided for religious instruction. If the idea of the class dividing took me by surprise, it was nothing compared with the shock when the teacher asked for the Catholics to stand and the girl next to me turned out to be one of them. My first, instinctive, thought – as an eight-year-old Northern Irish Protestant - was that I’d let my guard down. How could I not know? How could I not tell? I hadn’t consciously seen a Catholic in Northern Ireland, and I assumed that something about the look of them would give them away. Moving to this place, at that time, has taught me a great deal, and it has changed me from the person I might have been.
I know now that we do not need to be afraid of people whose backgrounds are not exactly like our own. We all share a commitment to making this state, and this country, the best they can be. And we will push them further, make them better, if our knowledge and skills do not come from the one pool, if we commit to cohesion but not at the expense of our plural identities, and if we give all Australian voices the freedom to speak and respect them by listening.
We all belong here. Whether our history here is ancient or involves more recent migration, we all belong. And we can all make this a better richer place."
Background
Nick Earls is the author of ten books, including the bestselling novels Zigzag Street, Bachelor Kisses and Perfect Skin. Zigzag Street won a Betty Trask Award in the UK in 1998, 48 Shades of Brown won a CBC Book of the Year Award. Perfect Skin was the only novel to be nominated in the inaugural Australian Comedy Awards in 2003.
The critics reckon Nick might have been tempted to become a comedian if he hadn’t done so well as an author.
The Amazing Race - Gold Coast Style
So as not to conflict with CresWalk2006, the planned I.S.G.C. Car Rally & Picnic Day was postponed to Sunday 11th June 2006.
It promises to be a fun filled day for all the family. This is how the event will work.
This is a relay rally and it will be on sealed roads throughout. Everybody will be discouraged from speeding or breaking any road rules. Initially all vehicles to the rally will be individually clocked out from the Gold Coast Mosque between 9:00am and 10:00am. You will be given a clue as to where the first pit stop is (basic maps will be provided). Once you reach that pit stop you will be given another clue and so forth. At each pit stop you will be given either something to bring back or a task to perform that will get you the next clue and so on till you arrive at the last pit stop where
a family picnic and games will be underway.
There will be a prize for the rally winner, as well as for best decorated vehicle. So get your teams together now for a great day of fun and adventure. Keep an eye out for a few Team Crescents wrecks that will also be entering the fray.
There are still sponsorship places available for the final pit stop and games. So if you wish to promote your business please contact the organizers.
Zuma
Unzapped in Rap
Once touted
as the future president of South Africa, former Deputy
President Jacob Zuma was found not guilty in a
high-profile rape trial.
What do coffee beans, torpedoes, surgical scalpels, arches and observatories all have in common?
Were Leonardo da Vinci’s flight ideas originals?
Who devised the casing for pill capsules and where did Fibonacci learn to flex his mathematical fingers?
The Islamic contribution to the science, culture and heritage of our modern world is often forgotten. From coffee to cheques and the three-course meal, the Muslim world has given us many innovations that we take for granted in daily life.
Every so often, over the next few weeks, CCN will bring you an invention inspired by the Islamic World.
Opening your eyes to more Muslim Inventions
The ancient Greeks thought our eyes emitted rays, like a laser, which enabled us to see.
The first person to
realize that light enters the eye, rather than leaving it, was the 10th-century Muslim mathematician, astronomer and physicist Ibn al-Haitham.
He invented the first pin-hole camera after noticing the way light came through a hole in window shutters.
The smaller the hole, the better the picture, he worked out, and set up the first Camera Obscura (from the Arab word qamara for a dark or private room).
He is also credited with being the first man to shift physics from a philosophical activity to an experimental one.
The best ideas and the best feedback come from our community of readers. If you have a topic or opinion that you want to write about or want seen covered or any news item that you think might be of benefit to the Crescents Community please e-mail theteam@crescentsofbrisbane.org.
Share your thoughts, feelings and ambitions for our community through CCN.
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Disclaimer
Articles and opinions appearing in this newsletter do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Crescents of Brisbane team, CCN, its Editor or its Sponsors.
