Cubs to Cougars

As young adults we often tend to look for something or somewhere to help us find ourselves. It is said that the best place to do that is college. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines college as a building used for educational or religious purposes. After visiting a real college campus, the students of Darul Arqam learned that it is much more than that.
The juniors and seniors of Darul Arqam loaded a big yellow school bus on January 7, 2010 to visit the third largest university in Texas, University of Houston, home of the Cougars. Most of them already knew that this was their college of choice but the visit definitely sealed the deal. A tour of the large campus was given to the students by a Cougar herself. The vast campus was the main attraction. Coming from such a small school, the students were fascinated. With an enrollment of 37,000, UH is the 23rd largest school in the United States. U.S. News & World Report also ranked UH second among national universities for Ethnic Campus Diversity. This rank itself was a breath of fresh air for the young ethnically diverse visitors. read more ...

Reaching Out: Hands for Haiti

It was a Tuesday, January 12th, 2010. The day was like any other. People got up in the morning to go to work, or school, consumed by their daily lives. And then, around four o’clock in the afternoon, the world underwent a shudder that left many people homeless and distraught, unbeknownst to the people in Houston, who were sipping their afternoon tea.
The earthquake that hit Haiti reached a catastrophic magnitude of about 7.0 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was near a town called Léogâne, which is approximately 16 miles west of the capital of Haiti, Port-au-Prince. By the 24th, about fifty-two aftershocks were recorded, all reaching 4.5 on the Richter scale or even higher. Death toll ranged between 220,000 and 230,000 and about 300,000 were injured. One million civilians were left homeless. Landmarks like the Presidential Palace and the Port-au-Prince cathedral were damaged, and many more commercial buildings were destroyed. As of February 12th, an estimated three million were assumed to have been affected by this natural disaster. read more ...