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Michigan Muslims To Get Halal Food In Local Schools
WASHINGTON & DEARBORN, Mich. Feb 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Spurred on by a rising Muslim population, local schools here are responding to Muslim parents' demands that halal food be served in school cafeterias.
Previously, Muslim children going to school in Dearborn were given, and faced, difficult choices at lunchtime, either to eat non-halal food offered because of hunger, eat only grilled cheese sandwiches and side foods such as vegetables (usually a very small portion), or skip lunch entirely.
For purposes of meat consumption, halal, which usually means "permissible" in Islam, requires that meat Muslims are allowed to consume be slaughtered invoking God's name, serving the dual purpose of blessing the meat and asking God's permission to sacrifice one of His creations. Animals must also be slaughtered in a specific fashion to cause the least pain to the animal and the blood must be drained. Muslims also do not eat pork products.
Dearborn schools presently do not serve halal food, prompting thousands of parents to demand cafeteria food match the needs of the local Muslim community in a city where some grade schools are more than 90% Muslim.
And parents are finally getting results, with local officials working on a plan to bring halal food to several Dearborn schools by this fall.
"We have a system of food. This is very, very important to us," said Sheikh Jowad Al-Ansari, spiritual leader at the 5,000-member Islamic Institute of Knowledge. "But children, when they are far away at school, how can you control what they eat?"
The lack of halal meat in Dearborn has forced scores of students to throw out non-halal lunches, school officials say. Others simply break the rules.
"My parents tell me, 'Don't eat it if it's not halal,'" said Maha Alway, 10, a fifth-grader at Salinas Elementary School.
"Sometimes, when I'm hungry, I just eat it," Ghuzlan Mawry, 10, said.
Dearborn Public Schools are presently accepting proposals from Islamic food distributors to provide and oversee meats at several of its 28 public schools. The program is likely to be tested in spring, and will go district wide, barring problems, this fall, said Bob Cipriano, business manager for the district.
"The whole point is to give kids food they can eat, so they're nourished and can function in the classroom," Cipriano said. "If we can do that financially, we're going to do it."
The district currently provides meatless lunches for Roman Catholics on Fridays during Lent, Cipriano said. And eight years ago, the district banned pork from its lunches, so that Muslim children would not accidentally eat it.
"We look at this as providing for our ethnic diversity," Cipriano said. "We make concessions to all our ethnic populations, where and when we can."
Dearborn, a Detroit suburb, has the highest concentration of ethnic Arabs outside the Middle East, according to the Arab-American Institute. About 35% of Dearborn's 17,000 students are Muslim.
Many of those students eat both breakfast and lunch at school, meaning their nutrition outside the home is limited.
"So much is thrown away," said Nada Harajli, assistant principal at Salinas. "They revert to junk food, cookies and candy. Having halal meats would be good for everyone. We want our parents and our children to be comfortable with the schools."
Samira Alasbahi, president of the Parent-Teacher-Student Organization at Salinas, said she would not stop fighting until halal meat is served.
"The children should get meat. They need iron and protein," Alasbahi said. "The majority of parents here are Muslims, and they all want this. They don't want kids eating anything other than halal. The day is long, and the children need a full meal."
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