I’m not actively looking for articles about the International Rescue Committee (IRC), it’s just that the IRC are busy little beavers and seem to be all over the news. Earlier today I told you about Iraqi refugees demonstrating at the State Capital in Phoenix, AZ and complaining that the IRC wasn’t taking care of them. Now, comes news that Muslims in Charlottesville, VA are working hard to build a new big mosque partly because the IRC is resettling so many Muslims in that city.
From the Daily Progress:
The economy has caused many construction projects to slow and others to halt altogether. Not so for the Islamic Society of Central Virginia’s future mosque, even though the long-awaited prayer facility has for years done a complicated money-raising dance that is unlikely to be seen anywhere else in Charlottesville.
A facility large enough to hold hundreds of people, the project is a stark contrast to the organization’s current prayer site — an aging house on 10 1/2 Street near the University of Virginia. Yet it has progressed slowly, with bit by bit being paid to the mosque’s contractor as money is brought in from one fundraiser after another. For that is the only way money can be raised, society members say — the Quran forbids borrowing money at interest, whether it be for a house, a car, or for Charlottesville’s first constructed mosque.
“We Muslims are not allowed to pay or receive interest,” said Khan Hassan, treasurer of the Islamic Society of Central Virginia. “We have to follow those rules.”
That is the background and now here is the interesting part from our perspective:
The necessity has been pushed along by the city’s burgeoning Muslim population, a result of more second-generation Muslims enrolling at UVa and from more refugees resettling from countries such as Afghanistan, Somalia and Bosnia.*
[….]
On Friday, Aisha Mohammed, a UVa second year student, said the 10 1/2 Street house was not exceptionally crowded, as she has seen it that way in the past. But the new mosque would free up room, and Mohammed said it would also be useful in providing a gathering space for Muslim refugees who have flowed into the area during the last several years from the resettlement programs of the International Rescue Committee, which has an office in Charlottesville.
Just a reminder to new readers that the IRC is largely funded by you, the taxpayer. I wonder if they are providing better services to their Charlottesville refugees than to their Phoenix ones.
* The three largest Muslim refugee sending countries are Bosnia, Somalia and Iraq. Many Muslims will end up in radical mosques.