YOUNG Muslims from Halesowen are taking part in an annual 10k run in London this weekend, which hopes to raise more than £300,000 for a dozen charities.

Members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Youth Association, from the Long Lane mosque, will join thousands of others at the Mercy for Mankind event in Battersea Park.

The aim is to raise money for charities including CLIC Sargent, Save the Children, the NSPCC and Macmillan Cancer Support and to combat negative Muslim stereotypes.

The 2,000 plus participants, forming the UK’s largest Muslim organised charity event, will use the occasion to challenge issues that some have linked to Islam and Muslims over the past year.

Youth leader Qalb Wasim Shah said: ''Like the whole of the country, we have been particularly horrified by the practice of female genital mutilation and cases of grooming here in the UK.

“As British Muslims, these crimes are all the more painful due to the twisted misreading of Islam that has led a minority of Muslims to use Islam to wrongly justify these acts.

''We believe that raising money for charity and helping others is the very best way for us to symbolically state that these crimes are not in Islam’s name and to also help those harmed by these acts of cruelty.''

The association is the UK’s largest Muslim youth organisation and a leading opponent of extremism.

Anyone wishing to donate can do so at www.mercy4mankind.org