Published on Aug 28 2010 by Nadimur Rahman

The National Tabligh Department (NTD) has recently carried out various litter picking activities in villages and around Baitul Futuh Mosque.  This a great way of doing Tabligh as it demonstrates to people that we care for our community and creates a natural interest as to who we are.

In April a team visited Cranleigh, Surrey after the parish council requested for volunteers on their website.  The NTD held a peace seminar in Cranleigh 3 years ago and the Jamaat is well known amongst the local councilors.  After spotting the request on their website, a team of around 10 Jamaat volunteers was prepared and visited the village to help out in their Spring litter pick.  This was greatly appreciated by the locals who then invited us to share in some refreshments after the event.

The second village visited was Oakhanger in Hampshire.  This village is the neighbouring village to the south east of Hadeeqatul Mahdi.  The NTD contacted the neighbouring village of Kingsley to offer our services – we were then put in touch with Oakhanger and helped to organise their first ever litter pick.  A small group from the NTD helped out in the litter joining a larger group of locals.  We provided refreshments in the village hall for all volunteers.  The editor of the local parish magazine wrote the following:

I just wanted to send a message to say a huge thank you for motivating us all and also helping us with the litter pick-up last Sunday. It was a huge success - what a mountain we collected! Thank you too for the lovely refreshments when we finished. They were very much appreciated. Everybody was so pleased to meet you and the rest of your 'entourage'. Please thank them all for their help and generosity.  We shall look forward to meeting up with you again sometime.

Finally, a team from the NTD helped the Merton Council to clean the streets around Baitul Futuh.  The council programmed a series of local events to help improve the local environment and as part of this we offered our services and thoroughly cleaned one of the local main streets.