Muslim men awarded for work against family violence

While  they come from different countries and have varying professional background, these four migrants have one thing in common – desire to help ethnic women fight the menace of domestic violence.

These  Muslim community workers were recently acknowledged for supporting the rights of Muslim women, as part of Islam Awareness Week in New Zealand’s largest city – Auckland.

All four recipients have been involved in initiatives for early intervention family violence programmes for ethnic, Muslim and refugee communities for more than ten years. They also work in areas of health promotion, youth issues, education, employment, positive parenting and other settlement issues in the refugee sector.

Epsom resident Hashem Slaimankhel trained as a doctor in Afghanistan and works for the Auckland District Health Board as a refugee health worker. He is currently chairman of the Umma Trust and the Afghan Association of New Zealand.

Blockhouse Bay resident Mahad Warsame is from Somalia and also works as a refugee health worker for Auckland District Health Board. He is chair of the Auckland Somali Community Association.

Hassan Hosseini, who lives in Kelston, is from Iran and manages the New Zealand Ethnic Social Services organisation, based in Te Atatu.

Arif Saeid resides in Lynfield and trained as a doctor in Afghanistan. He works as the community link manager for Refugees as Survivors New Zealand.