With over 8,000 calls a year in 2004 the volunteers at the Muslim Youth Helpline are busy but more inspired than ever before. They want to sustain their successful telephone coucilling service set up in 2001 and develop and grow new projects and campaigns which enable them both to create awareness as well as reach out to more young muslims every year. Frances Lawrence met with Layli Uddin – Helpline Development Worker and Rukaiya Jeraj, the online website editor to find out more about their work.

What have you been doing since your Philip Lawrence Award in 2003?

Laylie “In 2003, we were in a unique position of securing funding for our projects. The success and demand for our services had built up since 2001 and the PLA helped us get mainstream recognition and actually secured funding. So we were able to move offices to improve our work space and expand our staff.“

As well as operating the telephone councilling service which has experienced the number of calls to quadruple The Muslim Youth helpline has developed numerous successful projects on top of the telephone helpline. From online social project www.muslimyouth.net which provides an interactive forum, an intensive music programme Youth Voices to the support and awareness Prison Campaign. Frances Lawrence met the team to discuss their current work. The staff and volunteers at the London office should be immensely proud of their achievements.

Calls to MYH have quadrupled from 2000 in 2004 to 8000 in 2005. The majority of calls are about relationships or depression. British Muslim young people experience the same emotions other young people are feeling. Possibly these issues are magnifies ten-fold

Why are the problems ‘magnified’?
Mostly it’s to do with the community infrastructure which is not stable enough to deal with these issues. This is where the MYH can help – we are trained to deal with the issues, we understand the cultural context but as young people ourselves we understand the issues too.

Things are changing for the better though. The older generation is understanding they have brought children up in Britain as British citizens, as such they are going to be living with issues of relationships, education, finding their own path in life. We need to take an active interests in what is being taught in, Saturday schools, what the Imams are teaching. Could they be teaching more relevant issues for British Muslims?

The Muslim Youth Helpline (MYH) is a confidential telephone and e-mail counselling service for young people. The helpline also operates a community support scheme within the Greater London area.

Founded in August 2001, the Muslim Youth Helpline began as a youth forum created by young people themselves to respond to the social problems endured by young Muslims in Britain today. The absence of effective community support schemes and the apathy to deal with rising levels of social exclusion, mental health problems, abuse and criminal activity led to the creation of an anonymous helpline service putting young people at the frontline of service provision. The Muslim Youth Helpline led a year-long pilot scheme from September 2001, which led to the recruitment and training of 14 new peer-counsellors and befrienders. The official service was launched in December 2002 and the service was quickly inundated with enquiries. In September 2003, the helpline extended its opening hours and launched a free phone number to ensure that all young people can access the service.

As a matter of policy all volunteer staff must be between the ages of 18 and 25 years. By omitting the generation gap and the cultural restrictions of an adult-run service, we are able to build the trust of young people and deal effectively with the social pressures that young people from the Muslim community have never before been able to reveal.

The Muslim Youth Helpline is funded by the Home Office, Comic Relief and other charitable trusts as well as through generous donations from within the Muslim community. We hold Full-Voting membership of the Telephone Helplines Association who independently assess our policy documents and govern our practice.