2 women to be featured on interfaith panel

By Stephanie Dickrell
Thursday, April 30, 2015

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Two Muslim women will be featured Thursday on a panel aimed to connect Muslims and non-Muslims in Central Minnesota.

The St. Cloud Interfaith Dialogue Group will host the panel "Living with our Muslim Sisters and Brothers as One Community," from 6-8 p.m. Thursday.

"We want also to give the opportunity for women to speak about their religion," said Brianda Cediel, one of the event organizers.

"I think that is important, since we have here equal rights in America, (women) have also a voice to speak about religion. I know this is going to be disappointing for many Muslim men here, but we organized (it that way) because of that ... to get their perspective."

Ayan Omar and Basema Omro will speak about their experiences living in the U.S. as women who are Muslims. Organizers also plan to have a lot of time for questions from the audience.

Omar, originally from Somalia, is a language arts teacher at Technical High School. Omro, originally from Jordan, has been in the U.S. for about a year and a half. She is a teacher in the early childhood program at Hands Across the World.

Kevin LaNave will act as moderator, and the Rev. Virgil Petermeier will round out the panel.

LaNave is the director of The Center for Service Learning and Social Change and has moderated similar panels in the past. Petermeier spent 36 years working in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world.

The event will be at the Mary Center Community Room, in the building behind the Cathedral of St. Mary. It is free.

The group hosted panels with the same aims last year, one in Little Falls and another in St. Cloud.

This panel features local members of the Muslim community. Previously, organizers invited members of the Council on American-Islamic Relations to speak.

The panel comes a little over a month after a student-led protest at Tech High School over the treatment of Somali students. But organizers hope to keep the panel focused on faith.

Ayan Omar helped to organize an event where Tech High School students could show off their cultural heritage in March.

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