YOUTH PERSONAL SAFETY WORKSHOP
In the beginning of the Year-End School Holidays, the Hurricane Stars Club organized two free Youth Personal Safety Workshops, one for boys and one for girls, aged 10 to 17 years old. We partnered with Logan City PCYC and the Southside Academy of Combat in Underwood to present the programs.
The program started with Logan City PCYC officers engaging the kids with a variety of practical activities and games that taught the participants important life skills, like how to work together, choosing an effective leader and following a leader’s instructions. The participants challenged themselves both physically and intellectually and had fun interacting with the other participants and making new friends. After that, the PCYC officers then shared a presentation about how children should stay safe at home, online and while out and about, which was well-received by the participants because they could relate the points with the games before.
At noon, the participants also was treated to a delicious complimentary lunch provided by the Hurricane Stars Club.
For the second part of the program, the instructors from the Southside Academy of Combat taught the participants a variety of self defense techniques from both the martial arts of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and Indonesian Silat. The kids had so much fun learning new skills and practicing various martial arts moves with each other. We had a lot of positive feedback from parents who said that their children spend the rest of the day talking about what they learned and teaching their siblings and other family members the martial arts skills they learnt. Parents also shared that the personal safety workshops were something much needed in the Muslim community and praised the unique way the program was organised to include interesting games and also physical activities to engage the youths.
The Hurricane Stars Club plan to organise more such programs for Muslim teens and children in the future in shaa Allah and we are grateful for the tremendous support shown by the community to our efforts, Alhamdulillah.
Other School Holidays Activities
On the 12th of Dec 2018, the Hurricane Stars Club started its school holiday activities line-up with a hands-on workshop for Acrylic Art Painting at the Logan West Community Art Share in Hillcrest, Browns Plains. It was organised specially by our club for Muslim teens and children aged 6 years and older. The participants were guided to try a variety of techniques to paint with acrylic on their own canvasses. Some parents also stayed behind with their children and helped them to make their very own acrylic painting to take home.
The Hurricane Stars Club is partnering further with the Logan West Community Art Share to present hands-on Art Workshops in January which will include Glass Fusing on Thursday 10th of January, Clay Hand Building on Thursday 17th of January and Hebel Carving on Monday 21st of January. This is a specially organised program by our club and all Muslim teens and children are welcomed to register.
For our other school holidays activities, we also successfully organised two sessions of Stories From Quran Workshops for children.
Presented in separate age groups for 6-9 year olds and 10-13 year olds, the participants learned about Surah Al-Fiil and Surah Al-Masad as well as the stories connected to the surahs. Other than learning details of the life of Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) from the stories, the participants also learned many lessons that they can apply in their daily lives. After interesting storytelling sessions about the surahs, the participants also enjoyed making hands-on crafts connected to the lessons newly learned as well as fun games and competitions amongst themselves. The participants had fun while also gaining knowledge about Quran and the many gems of guidance that can be taken from it.
The workshops were very well-received by children themselves and also by parents who said their children were able to remember many important details and life lessons learned, Alhamdulillah. We are very happy with the success of this new program and aims to organise more Stories From The Quran workshops in the future.
The Hurricane Stars Club has prepared a line-up of many other exciting and fun school holidays activities in the coming weeks. To find out more and to participate, please register to Farah (0432 046 375) or look out for the poster in Activities section or on our facebook page hurricane stars club.
VISIT FROM CR. KIM MARX
We were very honoured to have Brisbane City Councillor Kim Marx come to see our ladies swimming lessons today and show her support for our ladies swimming program. She meet the ladies attending our the learn to swim lessons and our aqua aerobics class.
LADIES ROCK CLIMBING AT KANGAROO POINT
On a beautiful sunny Sunday afternoon 14 ladies enjoyed an afternoon of outdoor rock climbing at Kangaroo Point on the Brisbane River. The ladies enjoyed challenging themselves by climbing the cliff face, using natural rock crevices to climb. While climbing they could look out over the beautiful view of the Brisbane river. The ladies supported each other by encouraging each other while they climbed and by taking turns to belay for each other. It was a fun afternoon enjoyed by all.
FAMILY MOVIE NIGHT AT THE AUSTRALIAN INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC COLLEGE.
The Australian International Islamic College, Durack campus’s P & C Association together with the Hurricane Stars Club hosted Brisbane’s second screening of the latest animated movie Bilal: A New Breed of Hero. The P & C Association, school administration and support staff worked hard to organise a successful movie night for AIIC families and the community. The night was a great success with more than 150 people attending the movie night. Unlike the previous screening that was indoors, this time the movie was screened outdoors on an inflatable screen. It was a beautiful and windy weather for a lovely night sitting under the clear sky to watch the movie. The P & C Association had a stall selling hot dogs, chips and drinks, while the Hurricane Stars Club sold popcorn, fairy floss and chocolates.
The Hurricane Stars Club is happy to be able to expand and cooperatively organise a family-friendly program for the Muslim community in Durack and look forward to offer more programs for women and families in the surrounding areas in the future, in shaa Allah.
MULTICULTURAL SWIMMING INSTRUCTORS
The Hurricane Stars Club partnered with Metro South Queensland Health to offer a free swimming instructors training course for Muslims. The goal of the program is to have more culturally sensitive and multilingual swimming instructors to benefit the Brisbane community. This in turn will help to make learning-to-swim classes more accessible to culturally and linguistically-diverse communities of Brisbane.
Fifteen Muslim ladies spent two Sundays completing the theory and practical aspects of the course at an enclosed pool in Macgregor. They are now moving on to the next stage of training by completing their practical hours of on-the-job training as part of our existing ladies swimming program. They are also receiving training to get their first-aid and CPR certificates as well as a Blue Card for employment as part of the free course.
The good news is the Hurricane Stars Club will also be conducting another free swimming instructor course soon, this time for Men. The participants will also be offered the opportunity to complete the 2-day swimming instructor’s course, go through First Aid and CPR courses, and obtain a Blue Card for employment, all for free. The only requirement is that the participants must be over 16 years old and are either a permanent resident or citizen of Australia.
If any ladies are interested in the course but missed out this time, do not worry! The Hurricane Stars Club is planning to organise another Ladies Swimming Instructors Course in the future if there are enough interest from the community.
To participate and register your interest, please contact us
Hurricane Stars Club’s Parenting Workshop
The Hurricane Stars Club was honoured to be chosen to receive funding from the Queensland Alliance for Mental Health to offer a program for October’s Mental Health Week. The program was held in the Islamic Women’s Association of Australia’s hall in Springwood on 4th October 2018. It was a parenting workshop specially for mothers with the theme ‘Mums Get Moving Forward Together’.
The workshop was a relaxed and informal session conducted by two highly-trained and experienced presenters – Susan Al-Maani and Joan Burrows. Attended by mothers from different backgrounds with children of a variety of ages from adults children who are married to those who’s child is only 6 months old. The session discussed responsible parenting practices among mothers through focus on self-care, self-esteem and improved respectful communication. The session also helped the mothers to be more resilient in facing day-to-day challenges by identifying psychological barriers that they may have and building on their own existing skills and strengths.
It was a free event that included babysitting, so mothers can relax and participate in the workshop, a healthy morning tea and a delicious lunch by Sara’s Catering. Everyone felt welcomed and certainly gained a lot of insights into stress and anger management in being a mother.
September / October School Holiday Activities
To help parents keep their children active during the school holidays, the Hurricane Stars Club ran a few exciting activities. On the weekend just before the school holidays, we organised a female-only abseiling activity at Kangaroo Point with 14 mothers and daughters having fun climbing down the cliffs while looking out at the beautiful view of the Brisbane River. It was certainly a challenging experience to conquer our own fears.
We then organised four varied activities during the school holidays.
On the first week, we had a day camp for boys and girls on separate days while during the second week, we partnered with the Multicultural Sports Club to offer a Little Gardeners program for primary school aged children and to offer a Learn-to-Surf lesson for teenagers.
The Hurricane Stars Club hired buses and transported 19 boys on one day and 15 girls on another day to Mount Tambourine for the Day Camp activity. They spent the day having non-stop fun practicing archery, collecting wood and making their own camp fire. The kids cooked their own damper (traditional Australian bush bread) over hot coals and then enjoyed eating it with golden syrup. They then did various treetop activities where they had fun flying around in the treetops suspended by a rope. Finally they climbed to the top of a tree and rang the bell at the top to symbolize their successful achievement of reaching the top. Doing two days of the same activities, once with boys and once with girls, was a clear demonstration of how Allah created boys and girls differently. While the boys were bursting with energy to do every activity, the girls did each activity quietly and calmly but somehow completed them quicker than the boys did.
For the Little Gardeners activities, the kids painted and decorated their own flower pot and then filled it with potting mix and planted a flowering plant. It was a good introduction to basic gardening for the young children.
In the Learn To Surf program, participants were taken by bus to Kurrawa Beach, Gold Coast where they had fun learning to surf. They might not be ready to surf at Bell’s Beach yet but they had fun learning basics of surfing.
All in all, the holidays activities were fully-booked and enjoyed tremendously by all the participants. The activities were able to be offered at sudsidised rates because of the support and kind donations of the community.
ABSEILING AT KANGAROO POINT
We are grateful for a beautiful day for our ladies abseiling activity at Kangaroo Point. 14 girls and ladies had fun abseiling down the cliffs with a beautiful view of Brisbane City and the Brisbane River. They spent 3 hours taking turns abseiling down the cliffs.
MOVIE NIGHT AND BUNNINGS BBQ
On Saturday, September the 8th, the Hurricane Stars Club held the first and currently only Brisbane screening of the latest Islamic movie, Bilal: A New Breed of Hero. The event was held inside the Islamic College of Brisbane’s multipurpose hall and it was proudly sponsored by Human Appeal International.
The event was a great success. There were 330 people who attended, 164 adults and 166 children, showing that adults were interested as kids to see this wonderful animated version of the life of one of the sahabah, Bilal(R.A). We were honoured to have Brisbane City Councillor Kim Marx and QPS Sargent Jim Bellos attend our movie night to show their support for the community and our projects. The Hurricane Stars Club also sold popcorn, fairy floss, chocolates, desserts, drinks, hot dogs, hot chips and burgers to the attendees. The school’s tuckshop run by Bosthans Catering, opened to sell their delicious special dishes. All the funds raised from the event go towards subsiding the Hurricane Stars Club’s ladies and family activities.
The day after the movie night, the Hurricane Stars Club held a fundraising sausage sizzle at the new Bunnings Warehouse on Compton Rd, Underwood. On the second Monday of every month, the Hurricane Stars Club have been holding a 100% halal Bunnings BBQ as part of their fundraising efforts. This was our first opportunity to meet the community demand to hold it on a weekend so more can come to enjoy it. We are happy to report that the reception was amazing with long lines formed just to order the sausage sizzles !
We are very grateful for wonderful community support at both of these events. The funds raised have been used to subsidise the cost of our upcoming Mothers and Daughters dinner, ladies only swimmming classes and kids’ school holiday activities.
STALL AT THE PRE-EID ADHA MUSLIMA NIGHT MARKET
We has a successful stall at the night market selling popcorn, Cadbury chocolates and zaky merchandise while promoting our programs .
PIDE MAKING FROM SCRATCH
This week’s session for the boys saw the involvement of not 1 but 2 professional chefs who donated their time to guide the boys in making their own Turkish Pide from scratch. The boys played with flour and the ingredients even more than the girls and generally relished their time to mix, knead, design and bake their own pides. During break, the boys were treated to a teentalk about Decoding Parents by special guest speakers. They certainly looked like they had a great time and savoured the freshly baked turkish pides coming out from the kitchen. The teens were also proud and happy that they could take some of their own creations home for their families.
WOODWORKING WORKSHOP
The children had great fun attending our woodwork workshop. For 2 hours the kids sawed wood, glued, sanded, hammered and painted. They all created their own wooden pencil box that they can take home and use to put their pencils in.
GIRLS COOKING CLASS
On Thursday 5th July 2018, the Hurricane Stars Club successfully organised a Learn To Cook From cratch activity for teen and tween girls. Held at Loganlea Community Centre, 16 girls participated in learning to bake cinnamon rolls from beginning till the end. 🥨🥨🥨
A volunteer home baker , sis Effi, dedicated a few hours of her time to guide the girls on steps to make cinnamon rolls. After mixing the dough, during the kneading process , some of the girls actually exhibited natural skills in kneading by hand. Well done, girls ! 😍😍
While waiting for the dough to rise, a special guest speaker was invited to conduct a reminder session for the girls.
Titled “Decoding Your Parents”, sis Syifa’, a psychology honours student shared how much parents actually love their children very much although sometimes their actions may not be understood as such by their children. The girls enjoyed the mini games too.
After the dough has risen, the second part of the cooking begins. The girls had to use the rolling pin to flatten the dough and sprinkle the mixture of cinnamon powder and sugar before rolling the dough tightly and cutting them into pieces. Finally, their masterpieces were sent to the kitchen to be baked in the oven.
While waiting for the cinnamon rolls, the girls were treated to hot tea / coffee with biscuits as snacks. It wasnt long before yummy smell were coming out from the oven and the girls could not wait to taste their creations !
From the feedback forms filled in by the participants, everyone enjoyed their time and loved the activity that allowed them to try to do many of the cooking process themselves. The girls also said they enjoyed the reminder session. They also suggested that more cooking activities are organised in the future.
FUNDRAISING BBQ AT BUNNINGS UNDERWOOD
The Hurricane Stars Club team had a successful fundraising BBQ at Bunnings Warehouse Underwood.
KIDS PIZZA MAKING.
Everyone had great fun today making pizza. Pizza definitely taste better when you make it yourself. We had a variety of pizza creations but making it look like a face was our most popular pizza making style.
FUNDRAISING STALL AT EID DOWN UNDER 2018
FUNDRAISING STALL EID IN THE PARK
HURRICANE STARS COMMUNITY HUB 