Moslems called upon to sensitise communities

Accra, July 14, GNA-Moslems were on Saturday called upon to regard the mosque as an organ for community and societal change and not only as a spiritual place. ''The mosque needs to be a place where we can organise ourselves for discussions and make it a centre for reformation for our communities''.

Sheikh Zakariah Sebaway, Lecturer, Islamic University College and a scholar was speaking at an Islamic Seminar organised by the Prisons Service of Ghana in Accra. Sheikh Sebaway said most of the problems of the Moslem communities today are caused by negligence, indiscipline, ignorance and lack of resources.

He said children from Moslem communities are seen as troublemakers because they lacked the right parental care and guidance. ''This is not their fault; some of these children come from broken homes; some from homes without care and love in the communities they find themselves,'' he said. ''If children are not in schools the only thing they enjoyed doing is to engage in all manner of vices which only land them in the prisons'' he said. Sheikh Sebaway said Imams in the various mosques need to educate their communities in their daily prayer sessions. He added that children are the future leaders of every nation and as such, the need for parents and the community to love and care for them.

Imam Iddi Alhassan, the Chief Imam of the Prisons Service said the Moslem community needed to be sensitised about crime and the need for visits to the various prisons. ''When we talk of crime in the country the Moslem community is not left behind but we are the least when it comes to visiting inmates in the various prisons,'' he said. Imam Iddi said communities should not regard inmates as riffraff's but as Ghanaians who also needed love and care, irrespective of their status.

He said society needed to change and show love to inmates and accept them back into communities after serving their prison terms. Mr. Sylvester Rabbles, Commandant at the prisons said the Senior Correctional Centre formally called Ghana Borstal Institute aimed at developing the inmates holistically in their moral up-bringing through formal education and theoretical and practical training in various vocations.

Mr. Rabbles said religious bodies have the responsibility of helping the youth to stay out of trouble and therefore prisons. He called on all Imams and participants at the seminar to spread the message to their various communities for the betterment of the nation. 14 July, 2007

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