Muslim students and alumni at the University of Toronto have established the first-ever program to fund a full-time, paid Muslim chaplain on a Canadian university campus.

The Muslim Students Association (MSA) at U of T founded the Muslim Chaplaincy Program last year with the goal of raising $70,000 by this September, in time for the upcoming fall semester.

The project was born out of the need for a long-term presence on campus to serve and support young Muslims with respect to their educational, counseling and faith-related needs, according to Ruqayyah Ahdab, chair of the board for the program.

In a recent promotional video, Muslim students depict some of the challenges they face, such as being told by strangers to go back to their country.

One of the students in the video said she had to sit through an entire lecture listening to her professor explain to the class that Islam degrades women.

Others explained they often question their faith, or that there is something about mosques that make them uncomfortable.

“The situations that the students were going through and who they were trying to turn to for help [made us] notice there was a void,” said Ahdab, who estimates that there are 3,000 to 3,500 Muslim students at U of T.

“They would seek help or assistance from their community leaders, imams or their parents, but sometimes it didn’t feel like there was a culturally relevant or age-relevant stance that these people could put themselves in, to really give advice that meant something to these young Muslims.”

Until now, an imam has served as a part-time, volunteer chaplain on campus but is nearing retirement. Due to his many other commitments, he was often unable to provide full services for students in need of religious assistance, U of T MSA president Aisha Raja said.

Hiring a full-time chaplain will create a chaplaincy office, which Raja said will be able to provide “an inclusive space for Muslim youth to address issues of identity, public education and special needs, and to try to create a safe community on campus where they can go to on a regular basis to talk about issues they’re having.”

Raja noted that the chaplain won’t necessarily be an officially recognized religious leader.

“It’s going to be a person who has a religious background in education but also has a background in counseling and therapy,” she said.

Much like the Christian and Jewish communities, which each fund their own respective chaplaincies at U of T, Raja says the MSA is hoping that Toronto’s Muslim community will help fund their program.

Due to the university’s status as a secular institution, it cannot provide funding for the program. Nevertheless, both Raja and Ahdab say that U of T administration — through the university’s Multi-Faith Centre and the Campus Chaplains Association—have been very supportive.

“There is just a sense that there really was a need, both in terms of providing spiritual religious care but also community development,” said the Multi-Faith Centre’s director, Richard Chambers, noting that U of T has 30 full-time and part-time chaplains in total.

“The Muslim community, which is much smaller than the Christian community on campus, is nevertheless very well-organized, very visible and is a significant size unto itself.”

Throughout the past year, the MSA consulted with U of T administration and other chaplaincies on campus and abroad in order to develop the project. Among many others, they turned to Omer Bajwa, coordinator of Muslim life at Yale University’s chaplaincy office.

After advising the MSA at U of T on ways to structure their program, Bajwa said the project has plenty of potential.

“It’s very exciting and promising if a university of that caliber and that size whose students and alumni can put together a project like this. This can hopefully develop into a wonderful, thriving position,” he said.

Ali Abu Alhawa, president of Carleton’s MSA, said he would be pleased to see the program make its way over to Carleton as well.

“It would be easier for Muslim students to encounter their problems or any questions that they have, especially for Muslim students who come [from] abroad as international students,” Abu Alhawa said.

“[When] they’re new to the country and the city and they don’t have any family or friends here, they could come ask the chaplaincy on campus.”